Manchester United midfielder Nemanja Matic has revealed that Jose Mourinho is "the best coach" he has worked with during his career due to the Portuguese's demanding nature.
The Serbia international also spent a season under Antonio Conte at Chelsea in 2016-17, before being given the green light to reunite with his former boss at Old Trafford in a £40m deal.
Matic was on Mourinho's radar in January but was made to wait until the summer to complete a transfer, with the 29-year-old admitting that the self-proclaimed 'Special One' played a key part in his Stamford Bridge exit.
"Mourinho is a brand, and the best coach I've ever worked with," he told Air Serbia's in-flight magazine Elevate. "Sometimes it isn't easy to work with him, because he always demands more. Even when you play the best match in your career, he considers that you can play better in the next match.
"I cooperated excellently with him at Chelsea, and the fact that Mourinho is the coach at Manchester was the decisive factor in my choosing my new environment. Privately he's completely different from the way he is perceived by the general public. This is a man who possesses all human virtues. He's not at all cold or conceited, as he is presented in the media.
"He has created an excellent group of players with huge potential, and everything is there for us to achieve good results. I don't want to talk about the goals of the club, but when I mention Manchester United I think the ambitions are clear to everyone. We will do our best to achieve the results that previous generations had."
Matic has been used in all eight of United's top-flight games so far this season, while also featuring three times out of three in the Champions League.
Daniel Lewis
