Jose Mourinho says one Man United player’s agent once accused him of bullying after half-time sub

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Former Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has opened up about his time in England and has revealed one player accused him of bullying.

Jose Mourinho’s time at Manchester United began as a fruitful venture but very quickly the relationship between manager and players turned sour.

Players became more and more unhappy with the Portuguese manager’s methods and he was eventually sacked following a 3-1 defeat to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool in December of 2018, ironically.

Mourinho won a Carabao Cup and Europa League title in his first season at the club which got United back into the Champions League, and the Red Devils finished second in the Premier League but were 19 points from the winners Manchester City.

Mourinho on bullying accusation

The Portuguese manager, now at AS Roma, has opened up about his time at Old Trafford, which included praise for Richard Arnold and the United fans when he spoke on the Obi One Podcast, with John Obi Mikel.

“When I was at Man United, I changed a player at half time, I made a change at half time, his agent was accusing me of bullying,” Mourinho said on the podcast.

“With [Nemanja] Matic at Stamford Bridge, he was on the bench. I put him on minute 45, I took him off at minute 70. No, that’s education, that’s coaching. That’s doing anything to win. I had to [make a] change.

“I laugh about these times but it’s different times [now]. Even to be a dad, you have to be a different dad to how your dad was to you. You have to change according to the world, so football is a little bit of a consequence of that.”

Mourinho’s fallouts

It’s no secret that during his time in the Northwest, the iconic manager had plenty of fallings out with players. Luke Shaw and Paul Pogba were the main two who received the most criticism from the 60-year-old during his time in Manchester.

He once said Shaw was playing football “using his body and my brain” when he spoke to the BBC in 2017 and seemed to suggest Pogba’s heroics with France was due to the environment being best for the midfielder as he could “focus on his football” when he spoke to ESPN in the summer of 2018.

Mourinho won trophies at Old Trafford but, overall, the Portuguese manager brought a toxic air about him at the club with the current AS Roma manager routinely complaining about the facilities at Old Trafford and Carrington, according to The Athletic.

The time was right for Mourinho to leave the club.