Mourinho happy with first league win for his Manchester United

Jose Mourinho’s first Premier League game as manager of Manchester United ended in a comfortable 3-1 victory away to Bournemouth on Sunday (August 14).

Juan Mata scored the first league goal of the new era in the 40th minute following an error by Bournemouth captain Simon Francis and Wayne Rooney headed the second just before the hour.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who headed the winning goal in last weekend’s Community Shield game against champions Leicester City, then marked his league debut by scoring with a low drive from 25 metres.

United, without world record signing Paul Pogba who was suspended, were denied a clean sheet soon afterwards when defender Adam Smith beat David de Gea with a fierce shot from 12 metres.

But Ivorian defender Eric Bailly made his Premier League debut and midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan was introduced for the last quarter of an hour as the first Armenian to appear in the cosmopolitan league.

Dismissed by Chelsea last December, Mourinho took over after Louis van Gaal was sacked at the end of his second season despite winning the FA Cup in his final game.

“I am very happy,” Mourinho said.

“We knew the first 15 to 20 minutes would be them playing at a high intensity, pressing a lot in the middle of the pitch. So we had to control. After that we start finding our spaces to play and in the second half I think it was a very complete performance.”

But the Portuguese coach said his side were punished for the error which led to Bournemouth’s goal.

“I thought the third goal was the end of the game but it wasn’t. One mistake, one goal, game open again. This is the Premier League, you make mistakes you are punished by quality, every team, quality. You make one mistake, you don’t press the ball, you don’t defend inside you are in trouble. So I thought 3-0, game over; not over.”

He said his side’s priority was winning the Premier League or at least finishing in the top four to earn Champions League qualification for the following season.

A top four finish, he said would be fine but added: “We want more than fine.”

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