Mourinho lashes out at Man U players

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Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has lashed out at his players' poor on-field decision making for missing out on the full three points in their English Premier League (EPL) clash against Leicester City.

Star striker Jamie Vardy had given the hosts a 1-0 lead before Juan Mata struck twice to put United in the lead. The visitors dominated most of the match here on Saturday evening but missed several chances to score.

United even enjoyed numerical superiority when substitute Daniel Amartey was sent off for Leicester but could not make the advantage count.

They had to eventually pay for their poor finishing when Harry Maguire stole a point for Leicester by scoring the equaliser with what was virtually the last kick of the match.

"It is as bad as a defeat. 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. It is a game to win easily and then it is not easy to say we lost two points," Mourinho told the media after the match.

"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," he added.

"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."

Berating his players for their poor finishing, Mourinho asserted that United should have won by a handsome margin.

"It is an accumulation of mistakes in an easy match to win. The team was playing well and in the second half the result should have been four, five, six. But the reality is that it is 2-2," he said.

Mourinho however, did not not blame any particular player, preferring instead to tag it as a collective failure.

"Some players have childish decisions and time helps them to have maturity and to decide better. But some other players stay with childish decisions until the end of their career. You know it depends on what is inside and the way they learn or they don't learn," he said.

"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."

--IANS

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