Manchester United vs Manchester City: Jose Mourinho shifts focus and insists showdown is all 'about the players'

The bad guys wear black, so Jose Mourinho turned up in a pristine white training top for his pre-match press conference ahead of Manchester United versus Manchester City or, depending on your point of view, the renewal of hostilities with Pep Guardiola.

Clean shaven, fresh from the shower, it was as though Mourinho was covering every possible aspect in order to shift the narrative away from the collision of good versus bad, beauty versus the beast or however else Saturday’s derby has been portrayed this week.

Mourinho’s ‘previous’ with Guardiola, the City manager, is well documented and their relationship is unlikely to become any more positive within the confines of Mancunian football rivalry.

But no points have yet been lost, no decisions have gone the other guys’ way, so for now at least, Mourinho is rolling his eyes at any suggestion that he and Guardiola will become the story whenever the two teams collide.

“What do you want me to say?” Mourinho replied, when asked about Guardiola. “You want me to give you headlines and I want to go for lunch. We have different objectives. I have nothing to say to you.

“It’s a problem? You don’t need my answer. It’s about the players – just the players.”

In truth, both men have been at pains to play down talk of hostilities, but it has been their misfortune that their first Manchester derby comes in the wake of an international break.

Nothing much happens in international week, so if it means four days of raking over the past to fill the void before derby day, then so be it. At times this week, both men may have believed that the world had begun to repeat itself on a 24-hour cycle.

And for all of the history lessons, Mourinho insists that previous meetings between the pair will count for nothing when the game starts.

“It cannot help that I have played against him before,” Mourinho said. “Barcelona is Barcelona, Real Madrid is Real Madrid, Inter is Inter, the Premier League is the Premier League, Man City is Man City, Man United is Man United, the players are different, the stadiums are different, the competition is different, so it is difficult to make comparison.

“It is the same whoever I play. You want stories, but I don’t have stories for you.

“We met in the Premier League meeting, you want a fight, but the fight is (Kell) Brook against the Russian guy (Gennady Golovkin), it’s not us.

“It’s not me against him, it’s Man United against Man City.”

So how will the day play out? Touchline spats and post-match wine in the managers’ office? One, the other, neither?

“On the touchline probably nothing,” Mourinho said. “But inside, in the dressing rooms, fine - I met him a couple of weeks ago, at a Premier League meeting. You want stories, but I don't have them.”

The post-match wine, then? All managers share a glass of red, don’t they?

“That’s important? I don’t think it’s important,” Mourinho said. “If we do, we don’t have to tell you.

“If we don’t do, it is because we have other things to do, it’s not because of that that we have a problem. Because we don’t have a problem.

“Football changes in the past years. In this moment, you finish the game and we managers, we have more work to do than the 90 minutes of the game.

“I prefer the 90 minutes of the game than the 90 minutes with you -- I have to go to every television, I have to go here and there.”

So Jose and Pep are fine and Saturday is all about the 22 players on the pitch.

But win or lose, Mourinho insists that a game so early in the season cannot prove decisive.

“There are many ways to win titles,” he said. “Man United last season had very good results against the top teams and finished fifth.

open image in gallery

“So sometimes it is not between the title contenders that you win or lose the title. Sometimes you win it by winning matches and matches in the marathon between August to May.

“But obviously, when you play against a title contender, the team that wins wins three points and stops the other.

“So it is better to do that, or when you get a draw you accept you didn’t lose points to a direct contender. This is too early - we are in the first week of September.

“For us, it's a game. For me especially, it's a game. I don't feel any match more important than another one. So for me it's one more match.

“I want always to be in a position of emotional control outside because, for me, it's just a game against a very good opponent and if we want to be successful and win the game, we have to be on the top of our qualities."

Just a game, then. Ask again at 2.30pm.