Something tells us that Jose Mourinho hasn’t exactly enjoyed his first season at Manchester United.

The Portuguese boss has been constantly moaning about his heavily congested fixture scheduled as United have failed to juggle Premier League and Europa League commitments.

It has left the Red Devils finishing sixth in the league, meaning they must win the Europa League to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

While Mourinho has rested his players in recent Premier League fixtures, citing fatigue, many believe that he is making unnecessary excuses for his players.

That is a view shared by Liverpool legend Graeme Souness.

Souness slammed Mourinho

The Sky Sports pundit slammed Mourinho after their 0-0 draw with Southampton on Wednesday.

“We’ve all done it, we’ve all been there,” Souness said.

“It’s the price on the ticket if you’re winning trophies. If you get to the later stages of European cups… you have to deal with [lots of games]. It’s nothing new in football.

“Big players have to say to themselves ‘I’m not tired’. I mean it, I never ever felt tired.

"I think what happened if I did feel tired, it would be maybe we'd lost a couple of games and you started to feel sorry for yourself, and that would last a nano-minute. The more success we had, I couldn't wait for the next game to come along.

"The last thing I would want is a manager continuously telling me I'm tired. You're handing an excuse to your players to not play well. I talk from experience.

"People say the game has changed, but has it changed that much?"

Mourinho has responded

Mourinho was never going to accept that sort criticism from Souness. During his press conference on Friday, the United boss aimed a thinly-veiled dig at Souness.

"Our biggest problem is the number of matches is unbelievable," Mourinho said.

"But I know some people like to lie. I think they are paid not to lie, they are paid to be honest and speak from their knowledge to the people that watches TV and reads newspapers, but some of them lie."

But Mourinho wasn’t done there.

In his programme notes ahead of his final Premier League game of the season against Crystal Palace - in which he will field a young squad - he continued his feud with the former midfielder without actually mentioning his name.

Mourinho's programme notes

"I have seen in the football media that certain pundits cannot understand why our players are tired," Mourinho wrote in his programme notes.

"A pundit is not honest if they cannot forget their colours or if they try to hide the truth from their audience.

"It's not my fault if their managerial career was very poor."

And, according to Manchester Evening News, his comments had to be watered down because they were originally too strong.

As a manager, Souness took charge of Rangers, Liverpool, Galatasaray, Southampton, Torino, Benfica, Blackburn and Newcastle.

However, during his 20 years in management, Souness failed to win a single league title - although he did land an FA Cup whilst at Liverpool.