Mourinho not interested in discussing how to beat Manchester City

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho had no intention of discussing how to plot Manchester City's downfall on Saturday.

Published : Apr 06, 2018 19:21 IST

Jose Mourinho was not interested in discussing how to delay Manchester City's romp to the Premier League title on Friday, instead focusing on Manchester United's battle for second ahead of this weekend's derby.

City slumped to a surprise 3-0 defeat to Liverpool in the Champions League quarter-final first leg on Wednesday, potentially handing Mourinho an insight into how plot their downfall.

However, the United boss batted away questions about learning from Liverpool's approach, insisting: "I am not a pundit. I am not going to comment."

The only thing the Portuguese offered was that he believed his squad has the attacking prowess to worry their hosts.

Mourinho was more forthcoming when asked about United's motivation going into a game that could see City secure a first championship under Pep Guardiola, but his response made little mention of their next opponents.

"My motivation is to finish second," said Mourinho. "I still have motivation to finish in the top four, it is not mathematically done.

"We have a good distance but it is not done, that's the first objective.

"I would prefer to finish third rather than fourth and second rather than third. We have been second for many months, our objective is to fight for that, for that we need points.

"My objective for tomorrow [Saturday] is to try to have points that can help us finish second.

"[With] the number of points [we have] we would normally be fighting for the title and we are not because City has a very good number of points.

"That makes it difficult for second to fight for the title – which we are not doing."

Mourinho will take a strong side to the Etihad Stadium after Phil Jones, Marcos Rojo, Danny Blind and Ander Herrera all returned to training – leaving only Sergio Romero on the sidelines.

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