Jose Mourinho says he would not use Man United's 6-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur earlier in the season as motivation for this weekend's meeting between the two sides if he was in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's position.
United produced a nightmare performance the last time they met Spurs, finding themselves 4-1 down by half-time despite taking an early lead through Bruno Fernandes penalty.
The two teams meet again on Sunday in dramatically different positions to where they were in October, with United now second in the Premier League and an underperforming Spurs side struggling to make the top four after previously challenging at the top of the table.
Speaking to Football.London ahead of the game, Mourinho said that the 6-1 game should be ignored due to how isolated the game was from other matches between the two sides.
He also added he would not reference the game to his players if he was in Solskjaer's position.
He said: "I believe that 6-1 doesn't reflect the reality. It can happen. Of course it can happen, between two great, the results they can happen in an isolated way.
"I go much more in the direction of the other two previous matches between us and United.
"We lost 2-1 at Old Trafford, with the penalty, and we draw 1-1 at home last season, also with a penalty. I think this is more the reality. We are not far from each other so I think it is going to be a difficult match for both.
"If Solksjaer is going to use that result I don't know. If it was the opposite. If it was my team losing 6-1 to them I would just say to my guys that it happened once and it's not going to happen twice. This doesn't reflect the reality.
"The game is going to be tight and we can win, but I don't know, maybe Solksjaer has different things."
