Jose Mourinho claimed Vinicius Junior is a target for opposition “bullying” as he celebrated victory over Espanyol in his first game back as Real Madrid head coach.

Substitute Carlos Espi marked his Real debut with a last-minute winner after Jude Bellingham’s early header had been cancelled out by Espanyol forward Alex Calatrava before the break.

Vinicius Junior came in for some heavy challenges and both he and Calatrava were booked in the first half following an altercation, while Espanyol’s Edu Exposito received a yellow card for his second-half foul on the Brazilian.

Mourinho, reappointed by Real in June, 13 years after his first stint ended by mutual agreement, told reporters: “I run the risk of you going back months to dig up my words from when I was Vini’s opponent, but now Vini is on my team.

“He’s no saint, but what they’re doing to him is too much. From the very first minute, it’s as if there’s already a pattern. Now I’ll foul him, now you’ll foul him, one player gets a yellow card, another comes in without one.

“It’s incredibly frustrating for him, he must have a lot of mental control. I’ve even told him that if he scores, he should be careful how he celebrates.

“We’re in a social era of anti-bullying, but with Vini, we’re still in the era of bullying.”

Real spurned a string of scoring chances in either half –  Federico Valverde’s long-range effort hit a post – while home goalkeeper Marko Dmitrovic was in fine form.

Mourinho added: “I think we deserved to win, but Espanyol didn’t deserve to lose.

“In the second half, we maintained great control and applied a lot of pressure,  we took a lot of risks. We deserved to win.

“But a team that plays like Espanyol, that defends like that and counter-attacks like that, with players pushing themselves to the limit and good organization, it’ll be tough for them to go home empty-handed. But we deserved it.”