Jose Mourinho uses Man Utd excuse after Roma suffer European embarrassment

Thursday night was a low point in the managerial career of Jose Mourinho as his Roma crashed to a humiliating 6-1 defeat against Bodo/Glimt.

Mourinho's side were strong favourites going into the Europa Conference League encounter but were humbled by the Scandinavian hosts, who blew them away in the second half.

It was the first match of Mourinho's entire managerial career - which has spanned over 1,000 matches - that he had overseen his side concede six goals or more in one match.

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That it came against a team who had significantly fewer resources than his own and were huge outsiders for the match, made it all the more painful.

Striker Erik Botheim and midfielder Patrick Berg had given Bodoe/Glimt a two-goal advantage in the first half, but Carles Perez pulled one back for Roma - who were then expected to launch a fighting comeback.

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Mourinho criticised his Roma players in a similar manner he did at Man Utd

Instead, the Italian side collapsed in the second half as Botheim added two more goals to complete his hat-trick while goals from Amahl Pellegrino and Ola Solbakken piled the misery on the visiting team.

The Portuguese boss was predictably in an awful mood after the defeat and did not hold back on his criticism of the players that he selected for Roma.

Mourinho explained on Sky Italy: "The initial XI of today of Bodo Glimt had better quality than us. Now you can stop asking why we play always the same players.

"I did it with good intentions, to give an opportunity to those who work hard and to rotate the squad on a synthetic pitch in cold weather. I decided to rest many players.

"If I could always play with the same XI, then I would. It's risky, because we have a huge gap in quality between the two groups of players.

"I knew the limits of this squad, it is not new to me, but I still expected a better response.

"As I said, it's my choice to play them, so my responsibility."

This is the same excuse that the Portuguese boss used during his tenure at Old Trafford, when he claimed that a poor loss for United away against Brighton actually vindicated his approach.

Mourinho could only watch as Bodo/Glimt players celebrated ( Image:

AS Roma via Getty Images)

The trip to the South Coast saw United without their regular striker Romelu Lukaku, who was injured for the game having been a virtual ever-present for the side in attack over the course of that season.

Lukaku has played the entire 90 minutes in 30 Premier League games that season to indicate how not only was he preferred in attack over others, but that he was never rested in matches.

Instead, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial were given rare starts under Mourinho but the side went down to a 1-0 defeat, leaving the manager to aim a thinly-veiled dig at the two forwards.

He suggested that neither of those players deserved to be in the strongest side at United and their performances were the reason why he did not trust them above the Belgian striker.

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Mourinho said in the aftermath of the loss in Brighton: "For 10 months I get asked 'why always Lukaku? Why always Lukaku? Why always this player?'

"'That guy doesn't have a chance to start, the other one is on the bench'. You know why now."

Thursday night's result mean that Mourinho's Roma side have now lost three of their last five matches in all competitions, following on from painful Serie A defeats against fierce city rivals Lazio and Juventus respectively.