He is a clean, aggressive player – Mourinho defends Rojo after two-footed tackle on Zaha

Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho, has come to the defence of Marcos Rojo, after his horror challenge on Wilfried Zaha.

The Argentina defender was the subject of another controversial incident on Wednesday night, after a similarly poor challenge left Everton’s Idrissa Gueye in a heap last week.

Rojo only received a yellow card for his two-footed, studs-up tackle on Zaha and Mourinho insists he is a “clean” player.

“No [I don’t want to discuss Rojo’s challenge],” Mourinho initially responded when asked about the challenge on BT Sport. “Rojo is playing phenomenal.

“I didn’t discuss Danny Rose’s tackle, I didn’t discuss David Luiz’s tackle, I won’t discuss Marcos Rojo’s tackle.

“[He’s an] aggressive, clean player, playing the best moment in his career.”

Palace manager, Alan Pardew, says the challenge was “dangerous”, but refused to dwell on the incident.

“His challenge was dangerous. I don’t want to lean on that though,” Pardew told BT Sport after the game.

“He jumps two-footed, and we go to all these meetings where that’s a red card.

“The first goal was a call the linesman should have seen. I thought it was offside even from where I was standing.

“He [Pawson] refereed the game aggressively. A lot of fouls. It could have flowed a bit better.

“The players gave everything tonight. We have a big game on Saturday and we have to take what we can out of tonight.”

Former Premier League referee, Howard Webb, said of the Rojo tacklee: “In this case he clearly uses excessive force and endangers Zaha’s safety. He has to learn. He can’t do that.”

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