Premier League Opening Day – Manchester United 2-1 Leicester City
One goal in each half secured the first win of the season for Manchester United. The Red Devils found themselves with 3 points and the first leader of the new season.
However the first half was very timid and just the penalty transformed by Pogba was to be noticed. The World champion frenchman was named captain by coach José Mourinho. Coach was happy with the first win despite suffering until the final whistle when Vardy reduced the mark to 2-1.
Mourinho in his own words:
It was a good match with three good teams, in my opinion. I told the players we had very good periods, we had lots of glimpses of the football we wanted to play. Leicester were strong in a few periods of the game, but we coped with that as a team which is also an important thing. The team played as a team in these difficult moments.
But, of course, in the second half, I had Andreas Pereira and Fred both with a yellow card. Paul [Pogba] was fantastic – his contribution was amazing, but the fuel was disappearing every minute, so we were in trouble and we needed [Scott] McTominay and [Marouane] Fellaini to give me that balance in midfield. The players gave everything, they gave what they had. I told them to give everything they had. Everybody did that in a fantastic way.
“Obviously, it’s important to win and play well. I think we played well in periods and we played against a good team that invests more than us. They spent more money than us so I think in the Premier League, we must get used to teams who have players of the same quality that we have. Forget the name, forget the history, forget the shirt, every team is a good team and every match is difficult, so three points in the first match of the season after such a difficult pre-season, with boys who only had three days of training, was important.
Of course, it will be a difficult season for everybody, not just for us. But for us, it will be a difficult season because I had my plans for many months and I find myself in the beginning of the Premier League with the market closed in a situation I did not think I would be in.
It’s the last time I speak about it. It’s over, it’s finished, the market is closed and no more talk about it. I think football is changing and probably football managers now should be called more head coaches. We have big multi-functional coaching staff and I think we are more the head coach than the manager. That’s the way football is going.”
