Jose Mourinho took aim at match officials once again on Wednesday, saying that "the rules for me are different" after being told to sit down during the0-0 draw with Hull City, per Jamie Jackson for the Guardian.The United manager was in a hostile mood when he spoke to journalists after the game, seemingly referencing incidents involving Arsene Wenger and Jurgen Klopp to suggest that they are given preferential treatment.Not for the first time this season, Mourinho deflected attention away from his team's poor performance by referencing events on the touchline."You know clearly that I am different," he said, per Jackson. "I am different. The rules for me are different. I am different in everything, I watch my team play in a hotel, I was forbidden to go to the stadium, my assistant [Rui Faria] had a six-match stadium ban and he didn't touch anyone."Mourinho's comments regarding Faria allude to Wenger's four-match touchline ban for pushing fourth official Anthony Taylor after the Arsenal boss was sent off during the game against Burnley on Jan. 22. But most of the United manager's ire was aimed at how Klopp is treated by match officials."Yesterday one fourth official told to a manager [Klopp]: 'I enjoy very much your passion, so do what you want to do.' Today I was told sit down or I have to send you to the stands, so everything is different for me."It was not the first time this season that the Red Devils boss had suggested he is treated differently. After receiving a one-match ban for kicking a bottle against West Ham United in November, Mourinho again suggested something was amiss."The only thing I would like would be the same rules for everyone," he said at the time, per David McDonnell for the Mirror, possibly in reference to a 2009 incident when Wenger received an apology from the then-Premier League referees' chief Keith Hackett for being sent to the stands for a similar offence.Mourinho was also highly critical of the assembled journalists on Wednesday, accusing them of failing to report the "truth," per Jackson:You [the media] simply have to just tell the truth and, if you go game after game with Manchester United and you see what happened here with Manchester City, what happened here with Burnley, what happened here with West Ham, what happened at Stoke, what happened almost everywhere, you do your job and you do a public service, I think.He also walked away from one BBC reporter, per Jackson, after he was asked what referee Mike Jones had done to make him so irate."If you don't know football, you shouldn't be with a microphone in your hand," he said, before ending the interview, as shown in this tweet from the BBC:Critics will condemn Mourinho's latest outburst as yet another example of his tempestuous relationship with the media and officials threatening to overshadow his first season at Old Trafford. Even if Mourinho is correct to say he is held up to stricter rules, it seems unlikely that publiclycomplaining about the issue will improve things.Many blame the Portuguese's viewpoint for the "third-season syndrome" that has plagued Mourinho's career. Jeremy Wilson, writing in the Telegraph, suggests that "Mourinho's methods, and the regular controversy or tension about some issue or another, is brilliantly effective in the short term but gradually exhausts players both physically and mentally."United have seen a dramatic upturn in form recently and are on a 14-match unbeaten run in the Premier League, but three successive draws have seen Mourinho again show signs of pressure. If the above theory is correct, his attitude may affect the confidence of his players as the Red Devils look to secure Champions League qualification.Whatever the impact on his team's form, Mourinho's complaints are not helpful and are only likely to exacerbate any preferential treatment that already exists.With a huge game at Leicester City on Sunday to prepare for, the United manager would be wise to say nothing more on the matter.
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