Jose Mourinho: 'Please Don't Ask Me' to Criticise Manchester United Stars

Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho was unhappy with the amount of mistakes made by his players in their 3-2 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday but said he would not criticise them further. 

Per Adam Higgins for United's official website, Mourinho said: 

"When I speak about individual performances and sometimes when I'm critical of my players, you [the media] just don't accept it.

"The press and the pundits are normally critical of me when I go in that direction, so please don't ask me to go in this direction because it's not good for me.

"I will be very happy to analyse my players' performances when the performances are very good. It's a great thing for me to come in front of the cameras and say players A, B and C had fantastic performances—it's amazing for me.

"When I cannot do that, don't push me to the other side because I don't want to go to the other side."

Mourinho felt he was "too open" with the media when it came to criticising his players last season, per BBC Sport:

The coach admitted Brighton deserved the three points for taking advantage of the opportunities presented to them by his side, and added: "Obviously I wasn't expecting big mistakes because we're not speaking about small mistakes—we made big mistakes and we were punished by these big mistakes.

"Sometimes you make mistakes and you are not punished, sometimes the opponent doesn't take advantage of your gifts, doesn't take advantage of the mistakes you make. Sometimes they do it and this time it was almost three from three, so they were clinical with the gifts we gave them."

Brighton took the lead with two quick-fire goals midway through the first half from Glen Murray and Shane Duffy:

United's defending for both strikes left much to be desired. While Romelu Lukaku pulled one back soon after with a header, Pascal Gross netted a third for the Seagulls on the stroke of half-time from the penalty spot after being hauled down by Eric Bailly.

Paul Pogba scored an injury-time penalty to reduce the deficit, but it was too late for the side to complete a comeback.

While the Special One may have shied away from being overly critical of his players, his annoyance appeared to boil over during an interview with beIN Sports' Carrie Brown:

When asked about the chemistry and communication between his players, Mourinho responded: "You must be fantastic in your job to have the ability to, from the stands, speak about chemistry between players."

ESPN's Alex Shaw also questioned the cohesion of the team going forward under the coach:

While United may not have addressed all the needs in their squad over the summer—and their failure to improve their defence was particularly damning on Sunday's evidence—Mourinho still has an enormous amount of talent to work with.

That is especially the case in the final third, but the manager has struggled to get his attacking stars singing from the same hymn sheet on a consistent basis during his time at Old Trafford.

If he can do that, he won't have to worry about criticising his players too often or face questions about their chemistry.