José Mourinho enjoys going to Everton. “Always difficult, always beautiful,” he says. The Manchester United manager’s reasons include old-fashioned stadium architecture, passionate fans and the fact that Goodison Park was the setting for some of Portugal’s most famous victories in the 1966 World Cup. Mourinho was only three at the time Eusébio was banging in the goals against Brazil and North Korea, but he will not find it too difficult to re-imagine the atmosphere as the ground has hardly changed since.
A more pragmatic reason for Mourinho to look forward to Sunday’s kick-off is that it breaks a disappointing sequence of league games at Old Trafford. The last time United earned three points was away from home, at Swansea. Due to a combination of the international break and the fixture computer United have not had an away Premier League game in almost a month while three home fixtures since the emphatic defeat at Chelsea in mid-October have yielded one point each.
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