Manchester United’s 2018-19 League Cup campaign ended shortly after it began as they crashed out at home tonight, being eliminated by Derby County in a penalty shoot-out. United and Derby battled to a 2-2 draw before the Rams won 8-7 on penalties, with central defender Phil Jones seeing his effort saved by visiting goalkeeper Scott Carson.
While it may have been easy to scapegoat Phil Jones, it’s also extremely unfair to do so as this was an entire team let down by United. They never should have played so nonchalant as to let it come to a shootout against a Championship side. The Red Devils entered the tournament today with the second best odds of winning the competition.
As if it wasn’t bad enough for Jones, who no doubt felt the pain of the being the goat tonight, his manager kind of threw him under the bus in the postgame news conference.
“The penalties come and after the sixth I knew we were going to be in trouble with Bailly and Jones,” said Mourinho
“The shootout is a lottery. We missed one and we knew if we go past seven we would be in trouble.”
Then again Mourinho even threw the team under the bus in the match day program notes. What Mourinho said about Jones is one thing, but what Twitter users were saying, well no matter who you support, a lot of these are really funny:
Phil Jones’ Man Utd career summed up in one picture: pic.twitter.com/5BB0KvMHk2
— Footy Humour (@FootyHumour) September 25, 2018
You’re not a proper Manchester United fan if you didn’t think that Phil Jones would miss his penalty tonight.
— Retro United (@Retro_Utd) September 25, 2018
What is Phil Jones.. pic.twitter.com/aQ5qJIfICI
— Niall McGarry (@MrNiallMcGarry) September 25, 2018
https://twitter.com/NoylesRs/status/1044670417921888257
https://twitter.com/BigFootballGB/status/1044696912853635073
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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