Mourinho: “We stick together and always give our all”

Here’s what the boss had to say after the Giallorossi’s win.

That was a very important comeback because of the way it came about.

“We did enough to not suffer too much. Is Massimo Mauro there?”

No.

“What a shame. There needs to be respect. Respect for the challenges we’ve had, for everything that we give, because we all push it to the limit. I don’t think there’s a team in Italy that has won a match with just one centre-back. Maybe there is. There definitely is, but it’s not easy. We all stick together and always give our all.

“The danger was clear. When you’re 1-0 down, you’re on the edge. If you concede a second goal, you’re basically out of the competition. We had [Diego] Llorente on a yellow, [Zeki] Celik on a yellow and he’s not a centre-back. Neither is [Bryan] Cristante or [Rasmus] Kristensen, but Kristensen is very fast and very fit. I was trusting Kristensen’s speed to take on their subs – [David] Okereke, [Frank] Tsadjout, and the other subs they made, because they had a lot of forwards on the bench. We put more players up front to build, finish, and fill the penalty area, with Paulo [Dybala] to create, [Sardar] Azmoun behind Romelu [Lukaku] and [Stephan] El Shaarawy on the left wing. When [Leonardo] Spinazzola came on, El Shaarawy played inside and Spinazzola played outside.

“If we got knocked out today, we would be going out dead tired and out of solutions. Fortunately, we didn’t get knocked out and I think we deserved to win today against a team that are not Serie B level, led by a coach who’s not Serie B level, and that is made up of players who are not Serie B level. Cremonese are a really tough team. I think we deserved it.”

And you’ve gifted your fans a derby.  Yet another moment of unity amidst great difficulty.

“I don’t know what shape we’ll be in. We have a very important game on Sunday and that’s what we’re focused on. As I said before, we stick together, we give our all. If Lukaku has to play central defence, he has to play central defence.

“We’ll give it everything we’ve got, with our spirit, with our heart, with respect for the club and the fans. We’ll give it everything. We’ll see what shape we’re in for Lazio, but first we’ve got Atalanta.

“That’s where we are. Azmoun is off next week. [Gianluca] Mancini is injured and on a yellow card, [Leandro] Paredes and Cristante are on cards. I really don’t know what we’ll be like for the game against Lazio and then against Milan. I am sure of one thing though: we’ll go there with everything we’ve got, with respect for the club and its history, and the fans and the passion they bring. I don’t know how many times we’ve sold out the stadium in a row, 45, 43? What is 43 multiplied by 60, 62 thousand? How many people come to the stadium? They deserve for us to give our all, and we will do so. I’m tired too because of the kilometres I ran on that touchline.”

Are you happy with how the squad played, having changed formation?

“I’m happy but it’s hard. It’s a huge risk we had to take. It was huge. When these lads aren’t centre-backs, they’re more comfortable playing in three. They occupy the space more evenly; it’s divided up more. The lads are used to a high press because we’re not great at defending deep and we’re used to our full-backs dropping back. When we made those changes, Cristante and Kristensen were playing and neither of them are centre-backs. As I said before, Kristensen has that aggressiveness and physicality. For Bryan to play in that position, we needed to have three at the back. He’s a midfielder that builds well. When defending, he has a few more problems.

“Not having [Chris] Smalling in these games is a tragedy. The fact we don’t have [Marash] Kumbulla to help us or [Evan] Ndicka, who was working so well and really improving, makes it really hard for us.

“If you play Paulo, Azmoun, Lukaku and El Shaarawy, which of those four is defending when you lose the ball? When you need to turn on the burners, when you need to be compact, when you need to defend or to press? No one. At that point we’re defending in two separate blocks, six plus four. That’s a risk. It’s a huge difficulty. But we did it in today’s match. We take it match by match. Against Atlanta it’s a different story. Today’s game is over and we’ll move forward. Tomorrow we’ve got training at ten o’clock and the bus will be here in ten minutes…”