3) John Terry substitution explained
Terry was taken off at half time at the Etihad Stadium, and Mourinho has explained his decision to take his skipper off so early in the encounter [Daily Star].
“He was not dancing in the dressing room and he was not having a bad reaction,” he said of the 34-year-old’s reaction, “The point was not to take John out, but to put (Kurt) Zouma in. I want to have my fastest player on the pitch and not on the bench. I know they are going to play counter-attack and long balls to Aguero. I want to have him on the pitch.
“Defensively we were quite fragile. In the second-half, everything changed. We brought our defensive line to the midfield line. We pressed them and we created chances. We had lots of space in midfield. They could not cope.
“When the game started and 10 seconds later you have Aguero behind the defensive line and facing (Asmir) Begovic, you get immediately the notion the start was not good. He had two or three saves with that fragility. We were defensively poor in the first half.
“The second half was a different story. They didn’t create nothing, long balls behind, counter-attack and everything was under control. The second goal was a mistake, third goal mistake.”