Mourinho: ‘I don’t cry as much as I used to’

Jose Mourinho insists he has ‘learned to cry less’ about injuries after Paulo Dybala, but still warns Roma face Real Betis in the Europa League with problems caused by having a small budget.

It kicks off on Thursday at 17.45 UK time (16.45 GMT) at the Estadio Benito Villamarin in Seville.

Betis are dominating the group on nine points after winning all three games so far, followed by Ludogorets on four, Roma three and HJK Helsinki one.

Dybala sustained an injury while taking a penalty and is ruled out for four to six weeks, meaning his participation in the World Cup with Argentina is also at risk.

“When we talked about the World Cup four or five years ago, everyone knew there would be a lot more injuries this season and now we are living through it,” said Mourinho in a press conference.

The coach was accused of ‘crying’ over spilt milk and complaining too much about things not going his way.

“I learned to cry less than I did before. I learned to live with the reality of things. You can say that there are too many matches and the rich clubs are privileged. There are the rich, the poor and the less rich.

“The poor play once a week, the rich can play every day rotating the squad and the less rich are in more trouble, because they play as often as the rich clubs, but without the options to make changes. That is the situation I am in.”

Mourinho gave some clues for tomorrow, assuring Andrea Belotti and Stephan El Shaarawy will not be in the starting XI.

Tammy Abraham seems to have hit a brick wall lately and it is also affecting his confidence. Is it a physical or psychological problem?

“It is a problem of the team, not of an individual. I don’t like that kind of analysis, there are moments like this for all strikers.

“The problem is that if scoring opportunities won you games, we’d be top of the table, but no, it is goals that win games. There are moments when you score at the first chance, we seem to need four or five. We need to be more efficient and the goals will come.”

Mourinho seemed particularly irritated with his players after the scraped victory over 10-man Lecce, saying they sometimes did the opposite of what he asked.

“It is not easy for a coach to speak to the media 10 minutes after the final whistle. We need to be more disciplined and help out teammates both in defence and attack.

“We’ve been working together for a year and a half, we had some games with a great deal of concentration and where we respected our approach. There have been very few matches where we won individually or without the tactical plan we had before.”