Mourinho shouldn't complain about fixtures

Manchester United's 1-1 home draw with Swansea marked the 11th time this year they've dropped points at Old Trafford. Like many of their previous draws, they actually outplayed the opposition and probably should have put the game away early. That part will be lost in the postgame conversation, however, owing to
Marcus Rashford's rather egregious dive -- which, in the words of Swansea boss Paul Clement, "deceived" the referee -- and Jose

Mourinho's postmatch comments.

Mourinho again turned lightning round: Asked about the injury status of Phil Jones and Chris Smalling (whose toughness he had questioned in the past) he simply said "I prefer not to speak. I prefer to say brave guy Juan Mata trying everything to be available. I'm grateful for that."

Asked about Luke Shaw coming off injured early on: "I think [it] must be a big injury, because to leave the pitch after 10 minutes, I'm expecting a very big injury."

Then, he talked about how tired and exhausted his players were, saying that being forced to play nine competitive games in April was "inhuman."

As so often happens in these situations, the media focus switched to Mourinho's comments. Some pointed out that Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Celta Vigo also played nine games in April -- or that Liverpool played 10 matches between Dec. 31 and Jan. 31. It's frankly silly to even entertain this, but suffice to say, these teams play a lot of games because they are good teams who advance far in cup competitions.

Sure, there's room for a serious argument about fixture congestion. (Personally, I'd reduce every top European league to 16 or 18 clubs and scrap the League Cup.) But given the size of United's team -- 16 of the 18 in the matchday squad against Swansea were internationals -- it ought to be less of an issue.

The real problem for Mourinho is that they're without some of their best players (Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic) and that they've had an injury crisis in central defence. That's also down to bad luck and is a far better explanation than simply playing nine games in April.