Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho defends reaction to Marcus Rashford miss and hits out at pundits

Mourinho turned to the crowd and shook his head when Rashford spurned an early opportunity

Jose Mourinho has defended his touchline reaction to Marcus Rashford’s wastefulness in front of goal and hit back at his critics in the media.

The Manchester United manager turned to the crowd and shook his head when Rashford spurned an early opportunity in Tuesday’s win over Young Boys.

United would eventually score through Marouane Fellaini in stoppage time, securing a place in the Champions League knock-out stages, but Mourinho’s reaction to Rashford’s miss attracted attention.

Gary Lineker, the BT Sport presenter, was among those critical of Mourinho’s conduct. “Turn to the crowd and your own bench and shake your head in disgust at one of your own players, let alone a youngster. You just don’t do that as a coach,” he tweeted.

Mourinho said that his response to Rashford’s miss came about because United simply do not score enough goals and ‘invited’ pundits to try their hand at management and not react in the same way.

“We don’t score enough goals but it is not about Marcus,” Mourinho said. “It is about us as a team, it is very difficult for us to score goals but Marcus makes the movement, makes the runs, works hard when the team has the ball and doesn’t have the ball.

“I can never, never, blame a player because of missing chances. Can I have on the touchline – where not a lot of the ones that comment on football, they were there; not many of them were there – can myself or another manager have a reaction of frustration?

“I would invite that people to sit on the bench as managers, but I think maybe it is better to have lots of holidays in Barbados and go to the television screen and touch the electronic dummies, I think it is much more comfotrable than being on touchline like we managers we are.

“A proper football manager would never criticise another one because it’s deja vu for them. For the ones with a nice life is different.”

Paul Scholes, the former United midfielder and BT Sport pundit, described his former side’s performance as “terrible” and claimed Young Boys could easily have won at Old Trafford.

Mourinho refused to respond to Scholes’ comments, telling journalists: “I’m not going to comment on Mr Scholes. I’m not going to comment.”