Jose Mourinho says Manchester United players must 'grow up' to meet fans' expectations

Mourinho used his Friday press conference to make an impassioned defence of his Old Trafford tenure so far

Manchester United were knocked out of the Champions League by Sevilla on Tuesday (Getty)

Jose Mourinho has told his Manchester United players that they must “grow up” if they are to meet the expectations of their supporters.

After seeing his side eliminated from the Champions League by Sevilla, Mourinho used his Friday press conference to make an impassioned defence of his Old Trafford tenure so far.

The United manager claimed the club’s lack of success in recent years - what he termed “football heritage” - had made his job difficult.

With a pre-prepared sheet of statistics for support, Mourinho proceeded to recount each of United’s unsuccessful European campaigns since 2011. He then noted how poorly the club had performed domestically compared to rivals Manchester City in recent years.

However, when asked whether he was attempting to lower expectations among supporters, Mourinho denied that he was doing anything of the sort.

Instead, the United manager claimed that his players should “learn how to cope” with such expectations and “grow up” in order to become a mentally-strong team.

“I’m saying the fans have to be sad with being out and the players have to learn how to cope with that level of expectation and that level of pressure,” Mourinho said. “They have to survive and when they survive they become stronger.

“An easy life and the fans not upset and no critics, that’s not good. If you want to make a real top team with top mentality, they need to grow up and the best way to grow up is to have this kind of feeling.”

The United manager added: “I don’t want the fans to have low expectations, I want the fans to have high expectations because I want the players to have expectations too.”