Jose Mourinho first had to admit the advantage of Arsene Wenger's Arsenal team in the English Premier League, but even after the defeat, the strategist did not miss the opportunity to praise the "gunners".
In yesterday's 36th round of the Premier League matches, Arsenal defeated the Manchester United team 2-0, which did not have the strongest lineup. This was Arsene Wenger's first victory against Jose Mourinho in 13 English league matches.
After the match, Mourinho mentioned that the defeat could have been caused by a small selection of players, but he praised his team for their fight and attempts to win the match.
"Yes, all attention is focused on the Europa League," Mourinho said about saving key players for the upcoming semi-final match.
"No matter what the composition was today, our goal was the same - to win the match. You can say that we did not play with our best players, the current first choices, but you cannot say that we did not try to win. We will continue to do that in the remaining three Premier League matches," the coach said.
Mourinho also talked about individual player performances. For example, for Chris Smalling and Phil Jones, these were the first matches after a long break, and academy graduate Axel Tuanzebe appeared in the right-back position.
"I really liked the individual player performances, but I cannot say that I was not pleased with the team's performance. We did not win these matches because we did not score goals, but we definitely had chances.
"Arsenal had some success, especially scoring the first goal. It is not easy for a coach to change the starting lineup in a few days and maintain the same game. However, I am not disappointed with the game itself - we played organized and defended quite successfully.
"Arsenal was certainly not better than us, but they deserve congratulations on their victory," Mourinho concluded.
