Mourinho gives his verdict on Paul Pogba display after ‘professional’ United performance

Jose Mourinho was content after his Manchester United side professionally disposed of Bournemouth on Wednesday night.

United were in control at half-time thanks to Chris Smalling’s second goal in three games.

The centre-back, who scored the winner in United’s dramatic victory over Manchester City, was in the right place to tuck home Jesse Lingard’s low cross in the 28th minute after Ander Herrera’s neat ball opened up the Bournemouth defence.

Substitute Romelu Lukaku secured a comfortable 2-0 win for United in the 70th minute by adding the finishing touches to a swift counter-attack.

The striker was played in by man-of-the-match Paul Pogba and clipped a left-footed finish over the onrushing Asmir Begovic to finish off Bournemouth and Mourinho was happy with the midfielder, whom he hooked after 58 minutes in the defeat to West Brom.

Jose Mourinho told BT Sport: “The players we good. It was a good professional performance with good effort and responsibility. There was desire to score and a desire to cope with the defensive responsibilities against a fast team.

“All of them were professional and responsible. The first ambition was to finish in the top four and now one point is probably enough. When we have that resolved we can think about third and second place.

“Everything was faster, it was simple. The players were in the right positions and not trying one more flick, one more trick. Everything was good, I am happy.

“Every player on the pitch was positive and put himself available for Saturday. I’m not very good on man of the match, I’m not a big fan of it, but Paul Pogba played very well. Against Man City he was phenomenal but today he was very, very good. A good choice.”