Mourinho was sacked by Chelsea 18 months ago (Picture: Getty)
Mourinho was sacked by Chelsea 18 months ago (Picture: Getty)

Jose Mourinho has launched a fresh attack on his former Chelsea players by claiming his current Manchester United squad is the best he has ever worked with.

The Special One was sacked by Chelsea midway through the 2015/16 campaign and watched on last season as Antonio Conte rebuilt confidence and restored order at Stamford Bridge, masterminding a shock title win.

Despite winning the Europa League and EFL Cup, Mourinho could only finish a lowly sixth in the Premier League last term, a distant 24 points behind the eventual champions but is confident of improving significantly this time around.

‘I’m so happy to be the manager of these guys, I’ve never had a group I like so much during my long career,’ Mourinho told BT Sport.

‘I’m going to fight for them.’

Manchester United lost the Super Cup against Real Madrid 2-1 in Skopje (Picture: Getty)
Jose Mourinho gave his runners-up medal to a Manchester United fan (Picture: Getty)

Despite defeat in Tuesday’s European Super Cup against Real Madrid, Mourinho was heartened by his team’s performance against the Champions League holders and is feeling confident ahead of the new Permier League season.

‘I think we did well. We lost 2-1 which, I think, shows the result was really short, and one of the goals was offside so with a good VAR it would be 1-1 and extra time,’ said Mourinho, whose side face West Ham at Old Trafford on Sunday.

Romelu Lukaku scored his first competitive goal for Manchester United against Real Madrid (Picture: Getty)

‘I think they could score more goals than they did, we could score more goals than we did. They had a period of dominance in the middle of the first half. If Real were superior when they scored, they were very superior. They were best between minutes 20 and 40 and then they scored through Casemiro.

‘They scored when they deserved to score. That was when they were dominating, playing the ball best and creating more difficulties for us. But it was offside.

‘I think we started with very good control of the game but we lost that control after 20 minutes when they were better than us. Later we had a period of dominance in the middle of the second half. In the second half we gave them problems. I was happy with our reaction.’

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