Mourinho: Man United job is not a burden

Man United boss Jose Mourinho has brushed off the pressure of succeeding Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford.

The Portuguese manager, who won the Premier League three times with Chelsea, follows David Moyes and Louis van Gaal in attempting to bring the glory days back to the Manchester club, but currently sees his side sixth in the table and 13 points off his former club and league leaders Chelsea.

"I don't feel it as a burden, I feel the great history of the club as only positive things and not negative things," Mourinho said.

"The problem is, if you have the conditions to follow that success? Then that's a different story.

"One thing is having Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, David Beckham and Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt, all those guys 25, 26, 27 years old; it's another thing to have them at 30, 31, 32; another thing it doesn't happen.

"Obviously that plays a part so there are generations and in a certain period when probably David came the situation was not so easy, it was not so easy to go in that winning direction.

"At the same time - and I think this is even more important - the Premier League was changing."

Mourinho has also spoken of Moyes’s sacking from the role in 2014, saying: "I think a manager that's not sacked is not a manager, or at least is not a good manager. "We have to be sacked.

"I think it was just a bad moment in David's career and he has to do what I did, what we all do, move on and he did that.

"After Manchester United he went to Spain, also a different experience for him, then back to England, back in the Premier League. I think he moved on and this is what we have to do."

Photo: Getty Images/Christopher Lee

eir Sport channels are available across the eir Vision, Sky and Vodafone TV platforms as well as on the eir Sport app. All 6 channels in the eir Sport pack are available for free if you are a residential eir broadband customer.