(Football news) The two teams meet for the first time since November 2016, when Mourinho was in charge of Manchester United and suffered a 2-1 away defeat to the Turkish giants in the Europa League group stage.
After hitting out at sections of the media for “creating stories and fairytales” about his future as Manchester United manager, Erik ten Hag steered the Red Devils to a much-needed 2-1 home victory against Brentford in the Premier League last weekend, ending a five-game winless run.
Manchester United were trailing at the interval courtesy of Ethan Pinnock’s injury-time header, but Alejandro Garnacho restored parity with a fine volley just 89 seconds after the break, before Rasmus Hojlund calmly chipped in his first Premier League goal of the season to secure maximum points.
Sitting 12th in the table and still six points behind the top four after eight matches, Ten Hag has acknowledged that “the pressure is always there” when managing a club the size of Manchester United and his team “must build” on their second-half display against Brentford if they wish to put together a positive run of form in the coming weeks.
Before travelling to West Ham United in their next Premier League game on Sunday, Man United will shift their focus to the Europa League and will endeavour to claim their first win in this season’s competition having drawn their opening two matches against FC Twente and Porto, rescuing a point in a thrilling 3-3 draw with the latter three weeks ago.
Manchester United have had little success on the continent in recent years, as they have won only one of their last 10 European matches (D4 L5) and have failed to win any of their last five, last enduring a longer run without victory between 1980 and 1983 (six).
Since taking the reins of Fenerbahce in June, Mourinho has won eight, drawn four, and lost just two of his opening 14 games across all competitions, and his team enters Thursday’s contest having not lost any of their last four matches.
The Yellow Canaries were denied maximum points in last weekend’s Turkish Super Lig clash with Samsunspor, though, after they conceded an 88th-minute goal to draw 2-2 and subsequently lose more ground on reigning champions Galatasaray at the summit.
Mourinho, who was left frustrated with post-match questions from the media and urged reporters to’stop crying’ over his selection decisions, sees his Fenerbahce side sitting fourth in the Super Lig standings, and they have slipped eight points behind table-toppers Galatasaray, although they do have a game in hand.
Fenerbahce, who reached the Conference League quarterfinals last season, have made a solid start to their Europa League campaign this term, collecting four points from their opening two games after following up a 2-1 win over Union SG with a 1-1 draw with FC Twente.
The Yellow Canaries will fancy their chances of success on Thursday as they boast a seven-game unbeaten home run in the Europa League (W4 D3) and have won their last two home encounters with Man United, although Mourinho has only come out on top in two of his last 17 games against teams he has previously managed (D4 L11); one of those wins, however, was a 6-1 triumph at Man United in charge of Tottenham Hotspur in October 2020.
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