Man Utd upturn no surprise for Mourinho

Jose Mourinho has insisted Manchester United's recent good form is no surprise to him and that even before it the squad's progress was 'stable'.

Four successive home draws in the league saw the Old Trafford club slip out of the title race and left facing an uphill battle to even fight for a Champions League qualification spot.

However, six successive league wins and a 13-game unbeaten record in all competitions has seen Utd into the League Cup semi-finals, the Europa League knockout stages and just outside the top four, and Mourinho feels an improvement in results was coming for a while.

“The style of play was coming, and the players were very open for that, very keen for that," he said. "The most important thing for us, more than the style of play, was [we had] bad results but stability.

“We were stable in our performances, stable in our relationships, stable in our mood, stable in our ambitions, stable in our relations with the board and with the owners. Everything was stable and we knew that playing the way we were playing, the good results would follow sooner or later.

“So we had draw, draw, draw, draw and big distance to the top four, but we were playing well, so there was nothing to change at all and we were very patient and stable. We were not in hell.

"And in this moment we are stable again and we are not [yet] in heaven and we keep working. This stability is the most important factor for us.

“The bond [between Mourinho and his squad] is developed quicker when you win. This [season] is different than other places because it’s a place where it took more time to go into a winning period. We built that relationship based not on good results but based on bad results and this is the big difference.

“When you have at the beginning of the season a run of two or three months of winning, winning, winning, it is paradise. Everybody is friendly with everybody, everybody hugs everybody and everybody kisses everybody.

"But when you have bad results there is normally a tendency for that to be delayed and sometimes things even degenerate and there is no way back.

“But we were calm, we were positive, nobody was against anybody. I was trusting the players and the players were trusting me. The board always told me you are here for three years, keep doing your job, no bad results will change our idea of having you here for a long time.”

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