José Mourinho blamed “childish decisions” for his side’s inability to hold on to a 2-1 lead as Manchester United slipped 13 points behind Manchester City in the title race after Harry Maguire’s injury-time equaliser.
Two goals from Juan Mata had seen United battle back from 1-0 down but, despite enjoying a man advantage following the sending-off of the substitute Daniel Amartey, they allowed Leicester to snatch a point with the last kick of the game.
“It is as bad as a defeat,” Mourinho admitted. “Sometimes you take a point and you say: ‘OK’ and you accept it as it was hard to get a positive result. That is not the case. That is not the case. It is a game to win easily and then it is not easy to say we lost two points. For the last two minutes the players had to immediately adapt, to read the game, which they didn’t. So we had childish decisions in front of goal and bad decisions as it was not just about the goals we missed, or dribbling or hitting the post.
“It was not just about missing chances with an open goal, it was also about decisions. Easy decisions to make in easy transitions to counterattack.”
Pressed on who he was referring to, Mourinho refused to single out any of his players in particular but admitted his frustration at United’s failure to press home their advantage.
“Some players have childish decisions and time helps them to have maturity and to decide better,” he said. “But some other players stay with childish decision until the end of their career. You know it depends on what is inside and the way they learn or they don’t learn.
“I say for example – and he didn’t play today – that Scott McTominay has still a lot to learn, he is a kid who last year was still playing with kids, but no childish decisions at all. Some other guys have childish decisions for many, many years.”
United play Burnley on Boxing Day knowing they have an opportunity to reduce the gap to 10 points, with City not in action until Wednesday against Newcastle. Clearly still fuming from his side’s lapse in concentration, Mourinho refused to discuss the meeting with Sean Dyche’s side.
“You know I’m not thinking of that or looking at that,” he said. “I’m looking at this match and in half an hour I will be looking at the next match. And the only thing I can say was that it was an easy match to win. Even at half-time with the result 1-1 I told the players more than one time, the match is very easy to win. And we didn’t.”