Jose praises team for battling win at Palace

Jose Mourinho praised his Manchester United players after earning what he described as a "deserved" 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Wednesday night.
Here are the main points from the manager’s post-match interviews with MUTV and BT Sport…

A BATTLING VICTORY
“We deserved it, we were the best team, they [Palace] had just a little reaction, just a little reaction, but they had it and they scored a goal in that period. Then we had the best period in the game. In the first half we had control but in the last 20 minutes we were super dominant. We created a lot, had a big desire and we won deservedly in the end.”
COMPETING WITH THE LEADERS
“We are doing enough for that. If we had the points we lost at home in the draws in matches that we did more than enough to win then we would be close to the top of the league, but we lost these points and at this moment we are just closing the gap to the top four positions. There are three more matches before the end of the year and let’s see how it looks on 31 December.”
PRAISE FOR MARCOS ROJO
“Rojo is playing phenomenal, Jones is playing phenomenal. I didn’t discuss the Danny Rose tackle, I didn’t discuss the David Luiz tackle. I am not going to discuss the Marcos Rojo tackle. He is an aggressive, clean player, probably playing the best football of his career.”
ERIC BAILLY’S INJURY
“We don’t know [how serious it is]. It is not the same knee, it is the other one. It is the left knee. So he is not coming back to a previous injury. Of course he has a problem with another dimension but showed amazing character to try and try, and try until his limit.”
ON POGBA AND IBRAHIMOVIC
“I think they both were phenomenal during the game. The pass obviously is fantastic, the movement is great, the shot is good, but for me I probably prefer what Zlatan did after the goal because that was phenomenal. He played in front of the back four, winning every ball in the air, controlling on the chest, cooling down the play, he is phenomenal. It is not just the goals that he scores, it is not just the goal that gives us three points, it is the leadership, the desire, the passion. Fantastic!”
THANKS TO THE FANS
“They were fantastic and they are fantastic every day. For the players, to win in such a difficult place is fantastic. For us it was difficult to arrive here as well. We took one hour and 50 minutes from the hotel to arrive here because the traffic was so bad. We arrived here at 7pm, everything was so quick because 10 minutes after we should have been in the warm-ups. Everything was difficult for us, too, because maybe we felt this empathy between the players and the fans.”

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