Mourinho praises Utd players after draw Against stoke

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho says his players' performance during Sunday's 1-1 Premier League draw with Stoke "was better than against Leicester".

Anthony Martial opened the scoring for the home side on 68 minutes, but Joe Allen netted an 83rd-minute equaliser, as Stoke City came back to secure a first point at Old Trafford since 1980.

Mourinho says United could have won 6-0 save for a man-of-the-match performance from Stoke goalkeeper Lee Grant, and insists that his side played better than they did during last week's 4-1 win over champions Leicester City.

"It was the best United performance all season. It could have been 3-0 or 4-0 at half time, 6-0 at the end of the game, but the result was 1-1. But that's football," he told BT Sport 1.

"It was a much better performance than against Leicester. It was the best performance by far, six, seven, eight great chances to win the game. This United team is one that wants to score more goals and be completely in control.

"In the first minute their goalkeeper made an unbelievable save and he kept doing that until the end of the game. He started with an amazing save to Zlatan and ended with an amazing save from Zlatan. You can say what you want, but that's my opinion."

Allen was delighted with the point that lifts Stoke off the bottom of the Premier League table, and encouraged by a second draw in eight days, following last Saturday's 1-1 home draw with West Brom which put an end to a run of four straight defeats to Manchester City, Everton, Tottenham and Crystal Palace.

"We haven't been picking up many points but you can't fault the effort," he told BT Sport 1.

"We were determined to come here and get at least a point. We did threaten at times, which is a good sign for the weeks to come.

"The last three have been good performances, we haven't quite had the results, but everyone understands that the signs are promising."