Sam Allardyce uses stats to jump to José Mourinho’s defence amid criticism of poor performance

Sam Allardyce is not afraid to share his opinion

Manchester United lost 3-0 to Tottenham Hotspur yesterday. At home. They did not play well. In the first half, they gave the ball away sloppily and repeatedly. Players did not make the right runs for each other in attack, and defensive errors cost them dearly. Despite that, Sam 'Big Sam' Allardyce has jumped to the defence of José Mourinho, claiming that United were actually "good", because the stats say so. "I'll tell you the stats, and why Manchester United were so good," he said. "57 per cent possession, 23 shots on goal, five on target. Tottenham: 43 per cent possession, nine shots on goal and five on target," he added. Allardyce went on to claim that "it's only Tottenham's finishing that got them the victory". "Normally, that result would never, ever happen," he proclaimed. "When you've had 23 shots at your own place and you've not scored, that's not the manager's fault," he continued. "He set him team up to attack. They've gone on attacks, they've created enough chances to win the game comfortably, and they failed to take those chances and they ended up getting sucker punched by, in the end what was pretty poor defending." Big Sam then asked for fans to look at the bigger picture. "It's alright saying 'it's a disaster', yes is it because it was 3-0, but if you were the manager you'd say to your players at the end of the day 'look, cut the silly mistakes out, keep getting this possession rate and this shot rate and we'll win far more games than we'll lose." "The hysteria all around it 'cause tit's 3-0, nobody's looking at the real facts. The facts were: they created more than Tottenham, they outplayed Tottenham but unfortunately missed their chances." https://twitter.com/sportsbreakfast/status/1034323239466622976?s=12