Football
Rob Dawson, Correspondent 6y

Jose Mourinho: Manchester United won't score six vs. Sevilla

SEVILLE, Spain -- Jose Mourinho has said Manchester United will struggle to repeat convincing Champions League victories for Manchester City and Liverpool when his team take on Sevilla.

City won 4-0 against Basel in Switzerland and Liverpool beat Porto 5-0 in Portugal to all but guarantee their passage into the Champions League quarterfinals.

Mourinho led Real Madrid to back-to-back 6-2 wins at Sevilla in 2011 and Real Betis won 5-3 at the Estadio Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan last month, but the United boss thinks it will be a different story on Wednesday night.

"Honestly, I don't think it's possible to score six goals here," he said.

"Betis scored five, but I only see a club like Real Madrid or Barcelona with [Cristiano] Ronaldo or [Lionel] Messi on their best days to come here and smash and score five or six goals.

"The game they had against Betis was special because it was the local derby. Normally Seville is a team that defends well."

Mourinho insists he is expecting a tough test from Sevilla, managed by Vincenzo Montella, and used his news conference on Tuesday to hit back at pundits who have suggested he should take the handbrake off his team.

"Montella is Italian, and Italian coaches know how to organise their teams from a defensive point of view," he said.

"I see that the distances between the wingers and fullbacks are a lot shorter. Not like in England because some experts who never sit on the bench say defenders should never defend, midfielders should always attack, that's only in England with this generation of experts.

"I think the game will be very competitive. They can be nice and say we are favourites but that means absolutely nothing.

"They have a good players, good team and a good mentality for knockout matches.

"Sevilla is a team of cups -- the Copa del Rey and Europa League -- and now they have the chance to play in the biggest competition of all so the motivation is even bigger."

^ Back to Top ^