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Jose Mourinho reached deep into his book of excuses after Manchester United were outplayed in the derby to fall 12 points behind the Premier League leaders.
To almost every observer at the Etihad Stadium, the game has been controlled by City and Manchester United manager saw things differently. Anthony Martial scored in David Silva and Sergio Aguero, he denied the 3-1 scoreline reflected the game.
"If the third goal was scored in one of the times when they were dominating I would probably say it would come in when we were in the fight to get the equalizer," he said. Mourinho insisted United had given "not a negative performance at all" and added: "If you focus on the game today, it was open for 80-something minutes."
Bournemouth and Juventus have had a good time when they did not go back home when they had their home in Southampton and Shakhtar Donetsk at home.
"The game," he said, "was open in a week when they play three home games and have 6-1, 6-0 wins, relaxed, everything nice and easy and we play two games away, difficult where the second was like a final against one of the best teams in Europe where we give everything physically, mentally. "
The absence of the injured Paul Pogba disrupted United too, Mourinho pointed out. "We had to play [Marouane] Fellaini and he was not ready to play for 90 minutes. I can imagine when the result was 2-1 to bring on a fresh Fellaini, I think they would be in big, big trouble. For different reasons we missed Paul but that does not mean with Paul we win the game so it's not an excuse. "
And what of the stats? City had 66% possession and 16 shots to United's five. "The way people who do not understand football analyzes it with stats. I do not go for stats. I go for what I felt in the game and it was there until 80-something minute. I consider the performance of my team one with mistakes. It is different from a bad performance. "
Raheem Sterling's stepovers in the final seconds drew an angry reaction from Juan Mata, who appeared to accuse the forward of showboating, and Pep Guardiola confronted the International England at the end of his behavior. "He made some movements with the legacy, we can avoid it, but he's young and he's going to improve," City's manager said.
Guardiola was not entirely satisfied with the performance of his team, whose third goal came from Ilkay Gündogan. "First half not so good," he said. "We played like: 'I do not want to lose the ball' but do not intend to attack or to do something. I feel when I watch my players, a team that feels a little bit the pressure. They want to do well in the derby. That's normal.
"Despite that, we were stable, we scored one goal, the first 15 minutes was so good that we did not press well. They could play more than usual, but much better. "
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