Jose Mourinho sends harsh message to his Manchester United flops

Jose Mourinho has commanded his Manchester United players to man up in the wake of their shambolic 4-0 defeat against Chelsea on Sunday.

Mourinho’s return to Stamford Bridge was characterised by inept defending and indiscipline as United sank to a defeat which left them six points off the top after just nine games.

It was another afternoon to forget for record signing Paul Pogba, who failed to create a single goalscoring opportunity, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who has now gone five Premier League games without a goal.

United have some opportunity to restore a measure of pride in the EFL Cup against local rivals City on Wednesday and Mourinho issued some stern words to his troops.

‘We are really, really sad but again this is not for kids, this is for men and tomorrow we have to be men and work for the next one,” he told MUTV.

‘I would prefer to play in the Premier League. It’s a bad feeling in the Premier League. With the combination of results the gap to the top is six points.

‘We’ve had a very difficult period of matches. We lost points this week and even in the match when we played phenomenal against Stoke, we lost points then. Now we need to win matches.

‘I’m not saying they are easy ones but we have Burnley, we have Swansea, West Ham, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, matches that we need to win and the top four, the top five, they have to play between themselves like we did this week against Chelsea and Liverpool.

‘They are going to lose points too so we are in the run but there is no way to hide because I think our faces speak by themselves.’