Mourinho pays tribute to Van Gaal as Man U win Community Shield
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho
dedicated the Red Devils’ 2-1 victory over Leicester
City in yesterday’s Community Shield to former boss
Louis van Gaal.
Dutchman Van Gaal was dismissed at the end of last
season despite United’s FA Cup final victory, paving
the way for Mourinho to take over at Old Trafford.
The Portuguese earned his first silverware as United
manager as debutant Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored a
late winner on his competitive debut after Jamie
Vardy had cancelled out Jesse Lingard’s fine solo
opener.
And Mourinho paid tribute to Van Gaal – who he
worked with at Barcelona – for the laying the
groundwork for United’s victory.
“I want to dedicate the win to eight people, the
seven players who were not selected and the person
who allowed us to be here, which is Louis Van
Gaal,” Mourinho told BT Sport.
“Without him, we wouldn’t be celebrating.
“It is an important victory but, of course, we have
lots of work to do. Some of these guys have been in
training for one week, [Anthony] Martial,
Ibrahimovic, [Marouane] Fellaini – it’s not a full
pre-season.
“But it is always important to start with a trophy.”
Despite Ibrahimovic netting the winning goal on his
first competitive appearance for United, Mourinho
expects the Swedish striker to offer more in coming
weeks and saved some words of praise for new
centre-back Eric Bailly.
“Zlatan will be more dangerous when we’re more
dominant and play closer to the box,” he said.
“He is not a player to play 50 metres from the box
and be dangerous. He needs them [United team-
mates] to produce for him and we need to change
that, this team was more about possession and
recycling the ball.
great example of that.
“Bailly was the perfect opponent for them [Vardy
and Ahmed Musa] because he is as fast as they are.
“You have a question mark when players come
from a different level, but without [Chris] Smalling,
the way he played was really good, but Daley
[Blind] gave him the stability he needed.”
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