Jose Mourinho claims some of his Manchester United players are not mentally strong enough to succeed at Old Trafford.
United are stuck in sixth spot in the Premier League, with the title out of reach. And Mourinho, who is set for another big summer spending spree, conceded some of his squad have been in a comfort zone and are not natural winners like he is.
The United boss has been critical of Anthony Martial , Luke Shaw and Chris Smalling this season, and said some of his squad had been too “protected” under previous regimes.
“I didn’t know the players very well,” said Mourinho. “I didn’t know that some players need time to live with this (being a United player), because it must be part of your natural habitat.
“Play to win, responsibility to win, cope with the pressure to win. This is something that has to belong to your natural habitat. For some guys, it doesn’t.
“They also need that time to go out of their comfort zone or a zone where they are protected that we assume the objective is not to win - that also takes time.
“I think a very good way to do it is to fight for the competitions we are, because this helps - to play a final, to go to the knockout stages of the Europa League again with some responsibilities.
“These are all details that are going to help the people.”
Robbie Savage, in his Mirror column today, joins in the criticism of Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard for their use of social media, posting a video clip of a new goal celebration, while the Reds are struggling in the league.
Savage and former United skipper Rio Ferdinand questioned whether such behaviour would have been tolerated previously. Mourinho said: “Sir Alex Ferguson’s time as a manager finished three or four years ago and in three or four years a lot has changed in the football world.
“A lot has changed in society and a lot changed in the relationship between clubs and managers with the players and their entourages.
“Something that in football doesn’t change, especially in my mentality, is the desire to win, the responsibility to win, the feeling that I’m never happy with myself, I always want more from myself.
“That is something that, for me, never changes. I started as Sir Bobby Robson’s assistant in 1991 or 1992. In all this period, football has changed so much.
“The only thing that hasn’t changed in me is that desire to work and that desire to win. I don’t accept anything that is good. You don’t want good, you want very good.
“That is something I always fight for every day for the people that surround me, players, assistants, medical department, everybody that surrounds me day by day.
“That’s something I fight and I will fight for forever. Other details related to the evolution, for good and for bad, in society, it’s not possible to compare.”