Three defeats in succession and the talk of “crisis” now hangs over Old Trafford. How quickly José Mourinho’s Manchester United honeymoon has ended. The warm glow of a successful summer transfer window and solid start to the new campaign is now obliterated after losses to Manchester City, Feyenoord and Watford in the past week. It is as if the last three seasons hadn’t been enough; the circus is now once again in full swing. Yet, the fundamentals that had United supporters feeling confident back in August remain – and Rant has 10 actions that could help Mourinho turn around the slump…
Don’t panic!
OK, so maybe just a little bit. City’s devastating half hour burst at Old Trafford last weekend showed off all the slick intelligence of an archetype Pep Guardiola side. The only surprise in City’s showing is just how quickly the Blues have cast aside Manuel Pellegrini’s limitations and taken on Guardiola’s well-traveled ethos. Yet, the Reds enjoyed a strong second-half showing, with plenty of positives to be enjoyed despite the derby defeat. More worrying was the manner of United’s 3-1 turnover at Vicarage Road, where the home side was good value for the victory, and Mourinho lashed out at his players. The new manager must hope the game proves to be a one-off in a generally upward trajectory.
Break free of the inhibitions
Mourinho’s use of two deep-lying midfielders, typically Marouane Fellaini and Paul Pogba, does neither player nor the team true justice. It is, to anybody who witnessed France’s travails at Euro 2016, a role that ill-suits Pogba, a free-spirited midfielder who excels in running box-to-box, but is neither pure playmaker nor defensive midfielder. In fixtures against Feyenoord and Watford, United’s shape more closely resembled of a 4-3-3 than the 4-2-3-1 with which Mourinho is associated, but only against the Dutch was Pogba pushed further forward. In neither game was the Frenchman deployed on the left side of an attacking duo – the role and shape in which he was so good at Juventus last season. It’s time to unleash the beast and push more players from midfield forward.
Find the right defensive balance
For all Mourinho’s famed defensive nous, his side has kept just two clean sheets in seven games. On Saturday, Chris Smalling and Eric Bailly struggled to keep Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney at bay, especially from set pieces in which an unusually tall United side could have conceded more than the two shipped. Individual mistakes have become a distraction this season. Bailly’s positive start to his United career was spoiled by a series of errors on Saturday, while Daley Blind suffered a shocker in defeat to City, where he was at least partly at fault in both of the Blues’ goals at Old Trafford. Mourinho has also criticised both full-backs in recent weeks, but must now focus minds, shaping his team to cut out individual mistakes, while finding the right balance of structure and personnel.
Be brave, retain 4-3-3
Related to the question of shape, is whether Mourinho will retain or ditch his short experiment with a three-man midfield. Against Feyenoord, Pogba, Morgan Schneiderlin and Ander Herrera struggled to find rhythm; it was Rooney, Fellaini and the Frenchman who suffered in defeat to Watford. Yet, United’s squad appears to be replete with players that will benefit from the system. Pogba, certainly, should be liberated, while Michael Carrick and Fellaini have typically performed better with the surety of strength in midfield numbers. In wide areas, Antony Martial, Marcus Rashford, Henryk Mkhitaryan, and even Memphis Depay are all well suited to the system. Given the captain’s performances in midfield over the past few months, it is now clear that Wayne Rooney is not. And therein lies the cause of and solution to some of United’s problems.
Juan Mata: use him or lose him
The Spaniard is likely to be the biggest loser in any long-term shift to a three man central midfield. In Holland, Mourinho deployed Mata as United’s right-sided attacker, a role to which neither he, nor the team, is well suited. Mata has not always performed well at 10 for United, but there is ample evidence that it is the position to which the former Chelsea player is most likely to succeed. It is surely now time to deploy Mata, who is still United’s most naturally creative force, as the Reds’ principle creator should Mourinho return to a 4-2-3-1 system. But if the the shift to a three in midfield is permanent the Spaniard may be surplus to requirements.
Up the tempo
In comparison to slick City, United lumbered in derby defeat. It is not the Mourinho way. While the Portuguese has been unfairly accused of a safety-first mentality, his sides are rarely slow, and normally play on the front-foot. Indeed, Mourinho’s goal-scoring record at Porto, Chelsea, Inter and Real Madrid is strong: not once has a Mourinho team approached the low of 49 goals engineered by Louis van Gaal last season. Moreover, he is a manager who routinely deploys speed in attack. Yet, a team that has variously included Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimovich, Mata and Fellaini has fallen into old habits of slowing down United’s attack all too quickly. José has the option to tap into United’s pace though: Martial, Rashford, Mkhitaryan and Memphis. After three prosaic performances this week, the Portuguese may just do that.
Keep the criticism in-house
In pointing to his players apparent inability to “handle the pressure” and then singling out Luke Shaw, Mourinho has picked up from where he left off at Chelsea – a predilection to blame his players for faults that are not always their own. True, Mourinho may face a deficit of leadership in the squad, with new signing Ibrahimovic the de-facto on-the-field captain despite Rooney’s possession of the armband. Yet, pointing the finger of blame publicly is likely to do little but provoke a negative, perhaps under-handed reaction, from players all-too-aware of how to play the media game. Should United’s poor form prove to be extended, there will be little surprise if unflattering stories from inside the dressing room begin to leak out. Keep the public comments positive, and the negative in-house, José.
Resist chasing fool’s gold
Mourinho demonstrated a keen understanding of United’s priorities this season in making eight changes for the Reds’ Europa League game at Feyenoord. In the circumstances, with United’s priority clearly a Premier League title challenge, it was the right call, even if rotation played no small part in defeat. There is temptation, after three successive losses, to change that policy, to select a full-strength side for the Football League Cup tie with Northampton Town this week. After all, with United already six points behind a rampant City, is the goal now simply Champions League qualification and a decent cup run? Tempting, but a small squad’s limitations might be exposed if stretched fully across four competitions. The brave decision is to let the kids run loose at Northampton and the squad’s fringe take on European competition.
Permanently incorporate Rashford
In the midst of Martial’s sharp drop in form, the young Englishman is United’s most direct attacking talent. Bright performances off the bench against Cities Leicester, Hull and Manchester, earned a start at Feyenoord. Rashford, in keeping with his colleagues, struggled to get into the game, but he was a rare bright light in United’s sub-par performance in north London this weekend, scoring on the rebound and demonstrating direct running from an unfamiliar role on the left flank. It is a role in which Rashford can have an impact, but is unlikely to perform his best. Indeed, while Ibrahimovic has scored four times in the Premier League this season, there is a strong argument for the Swede to enjoy some time on the bench against the league’s lesser teams – and when United needs to stretch the game.
Time to move on from Rooney
Rant has often been accused of having an “agenda” when it comes to the club and national captain. The suggestion is that, in some unexplained desperation to rid the club of the once brilliant striker-cum-midfielder, Rant is blind to Rooney’s true qualities. It is, surely, an argument that can be dismissed as the bunk it has always been. The sad truth is that Rooney’s decline, three seasons in the making, is on a sharp downward trajectory. Moments of brilliance now punctuate the norm: mediocrity that is weighing down the team and his colleagues. Rooney is now third best in any position for which he can be considered. Behind Ibrahimovic, Rashford and Martial up front; less creative than Mata and Mkhitaryan at number 10; less impactful than most on the wing; and, frankly, a burden in central midfield. United, Mourinho and perhaps event Rooney will benefit from finally moving on.
If Moronho was as good as his lovers say he is, then why hasn’t he dropped Rooney already. Why doesn’t he know his best 11? NO EXCUSES. Pep Guardiola or as you called him ‘Pep Mourinho’ in this article, has signed for Manchester City, used mostly Mancini’s and Pellegrini’s players in Silva, Kolarov, Clichy, Sagna, Zabaleta, Navas, Aguero, Iheanacho, Fernando and Fernandinho and they’re top of the league and haven’t dropped a single point in the League or Champions League. Pep knows his first 11 and his style and tactics have worked from the off. If Jose Mourinho is as good as you think he is, then why hasn’t he made an instant impact? Has he never ever watched Pogba play at Juve? if so then why hasn’t he played him in the same role and built his team around him? You United fans need to wake up and smell the coffee lol, your club have panicked and gone out and lumbered yourselves with a manager who’s egotistical and volatile, not just that but an almost over the hill egotistical striker of the same ilk. I don’t think any of you realise how bad an affect he had on Chelsea and all the evidence was staring you right in the face. Chelsea are in over £1 million of debt because of all the signings they’ve made for Mourinho, his volatile attitude ended up destabilizing Chelsea’s first team, he alienated and publicly attacked the club doctor, lumbering himself and their club in a huge public law suit.
As soon as you signed Mourinho, almost all your entire fan base started praising him as the best in the world, only while he was at Chelsea your entire fan base were signing abusive songs at him every time you played against him.
Trust me it isn’t going to get much better, you can’t offer Mourinho the amount of money he spent at Chelsea. Mourinho is doomed and past it, he’s the manager equivalent of Wayne Rooney, dead in the water.
Seems a little early for the Blue side (quarter) of Manchester (Stockport) to be crowing. Perhaps you should get a tattoo?
Mourinho now has to contend with a much tougher league, tougher clubs who have strengthened around you. At this rate you will be lucky to get Europa League next season, no one fears Ibrahimovic in England as we all knew he’s on his last leg and is up against far tougher defenders than ever before in his entire career. half your players are average at best, not even your £100 odd million Pogba after addons would break into Manchester City’s first team. Jamie Carragher is a moron thinking De Gea is the best in the world, Neuer is a far better keeper. Your clubs in big trouble now, if you fail to get Champions League football in the next few years then, your club are in big trouble.
This is possibly the worst attempt by a Blue WUM in the history of Rant.
Spot on. I would add one more. Pick your best starting 11 (with players in their best positions) and let them play. Mourinho doesn’t know who his best 11 is similarly to LVG. It is baffling after watching United last year he is now doing the same. The Watford game looked like a bunch of guys who had never even trained with one another. It doesn’t help Mourinho’s cause that Pep and City play beautifully and are already 6 points on top of them. It is early but Jose might be hesitant to drop Rooney because he himself might be falling in the Rooney category. Past it as a top manager. Food for thought..
When only circa 30,000 turn up for an important CL and the manager has to mention it I would be keeping my head down,you cant polish a turd.
Not sure which is worse. The idea that Mourinho doesn’t know his best eleven or the idea that he does, but that it includes Rooney and Fellaini but not Rashford or Mkhitaryan.
Plenty has been ranted about the limitations of Fellaini and Rooney – rightly so. but Mourinho continues to persist with them. At the same time when all players are available, Rashford and Mkhitaryan do not make his first eleven. Rashford is much more than Zlatan’s understudy, he is United’s most versatile striker, in that he can play anywhere across the front line. With his pace and skill, and an eye for a goal, he should be starter. Mkhitaryan looked good in pre-season (without Rooney) but has been neglected since. He was a star in Germany last season and should be given a run as United’s number ten with Pogba playing just behind him.
Am really shocked @ the excuses this article is affording Mourinho after a disstrous start to the season. I would have understood if only the same understanding was shown last season. Mourinho came to United saying he has watched the team for six months and he knows what the problems were. Based on that he said he only needs four signings to fix it. He chose and got those signings(except Pogba) well before the season started. Now seven matches into the season he still doesn’t know his starting 11 or what formation he wants to play. Today it is 4231, next is 433. Now i hate to say this, you have Pep who came to shitty, never managed in prem and was saddled with Beryern until july, inherited players from two coaches, been able to make them his team and had won 7 straight matches scoring over 20goals. What do we have of Jose? Captivating press conferences, promises he knows are not realistics and jabs @ refrees and his own players. The diferrence in class is Pep giving support to Bravo even when it was obvious he had a shocker of a game and Jose blaming Shaw when it’s now turned out the poor was strugling an injury. I wish he succeeds @ United but the stats are stacked against him. He has lost the last 14 or is it 15 now of his last 33 matches the same nunmber of matches he lost in 104 matches when he was @ his peak. Out of 22 trophies he won as a coach, 17 of them he won btw2002-2010. That is 17trophies in 8yrs. In the last 6yrs, he only won 5. If Rooney is a player in decline, then it is safe to say Mourinho is equally a coach in decline. I wish him the very best of luck because he will need plenty of it.
Seriously. Are you “Mourinho out” after 7 games?
Mourinho is panicking and does not really know his best eleven. Secondly attitude towards the players is very bad. Thirdly he has made divisions within the team. Let him know that nobody will buy his excuses of blaming the referees and players will help if he fails to deliver after being given 150million pounds to buy players. he will soon be booted out.
Interesting, agree with most of it. I half-heattedly stuck up for Rooney on here recently, partly because I wouldn’t want United Rant to become a negative weekly Rooney Rant, but permission to unleash hell after that Northampton match. Absolute garbage from Rooney and the team only started to look threatening when he was shunted out to the right where he could do less damage. I think 4-3-3 does look the way to go, suits the majority of our squad, but I think Mata can do that role effectively at times, depends on the situation. I wouldn’t ditch him, pure good vibes and the only guy to sign autographs and interact with fans at Sixfields by all accounts.
The big worry is Mourinho, can he take your advice? I doubt it somehow. When asked about Herrera’s good performance against Npton he said he didn’t want to ‘individualise’ players. That could be because he’s learned his lesson from the last week, but is more likely that when the team wins it’s down to him and when the team loses it’s down to other individuals. I suspect we are seeing the first signs of Mourinho’s shelf life….
It hurts me to see what has become of united under Mourinho.
I am from India and the first time i saw Man Utd play was in the 2010-11 season nd i have been a fan ever since.
What attracted me to Utd was not the fact that we were a big club and we had superstars in our team(i dnt think the 2010-11 side had that many superstars though) but it was the fact that WE HAD A TEAM WHICH KNEW HOW TO PLAY. We had a gameplan which was not sophisticated by any means but was so effective.I still remember those cross field passes by scholes to Valencia,that silky touch of Berbatov,those marauding runs of Evra.
And couple this with the amazing team spirit and an uncanny ability to find the net when most needed and you have your league champions right there.
So,i’m going to skip what has happened in the last three years coz i felt the two managers should never have been given that job.
Well i was not exactly delighted when they gave the job to Mourinho and i fear the worst to be honest.Mourinho is a manager who relies on the transfer market to improve his Team and not the Training ground.
And still after spending 200 mln in this transfer window he’s having United play this long ball football is something i can’t fathom.
WE ARE MAN UTD, WE SHOULD BE PLAYING AT A HIGHER TEMPO THAN MAN CITY IN A PREMIER LEAGUE GAME AT OLD TRAFFORD.
We should be playing football that’s pleasing to watch.Now its not just the city match,even in the games we won there was just no pattern to the play emerging.And i can’t believe against city every time our mid fielders got the ball they just lumped it out to Ibra. It was like we were too afraid to play along the floor.And against watford, it was the worst i have seen a man utd team play and i saw the cl game against psv at home last season. Team cohesion is something entirely missing from man utd this season.
Well i know what mourinho will do, he will buy new players in january and if it still doesnt work will buy more and more and more.We will get optimistic after every transfer window only for their dreams to shatter every time.
The problem with united is not that we dont have good players,the problem is we seem to have forgotten what the club was about.
why didnt we go for jurgen klopp or ancelloti. I am in absolute awe of the job Klopp has done at liverpool,you look at liverpool and you see how football should be played.Liverpool would absolutely crush this utd team.
We seem to have no energy in our team and our manager keeps on playing fellaini in mf . What was the need of playing fellaini against city why not goo for someone who can actuall pass the ball like herrera or carrick or blind,it was not as if city had a huge physical presence in their lineup. ANd against watford why play him again if you are playing both bailly and smalling to deal with their two forwards. We should have absolutely dominated the midfield and outpassed watford but instead we got outplayed ,outpassed and outfought by them.
And he plays Rashford on the left wing……i mean WTF.
Watching united used to be something i used to cherish and look forward too and over the last three years we have dropped off so much that every time i see utd now it gets really depressing.
Maybe i always compare with the fergie years but you give me one reason why i shouldn’t??
Ferguson famously never criticised the players in public; Mourinho adopted the same approach. Ferguson was able to shut down unwelcome lines of media inquiry by scaring individual reporters into anodyne obedience, through his “unless you’re careful” example of not speaking to the BBC, or with a simple “I’m not getting into that”. Mourinho, however, deflected public pressure from his players after a bad result through misdirection – by making the story about something else instead – about the referee, opposing managers, the wide-reaching conspiracy against his own club, et cetera. The eye poke for example: it’s extraordinary how lacking in split-second spontaneity the action is, extraordinary how many people Mourinho determinedly wades through in order to reach Vilanova.
This behaviour of course fuelled Charlton’s veto – that Mourinho wasn’t Manchester United material, despite the trophy haul – and delayed the appointment for 3 seasons. I’m just wondering whether some conditions weren’t placed on the Portuguese when he finally got the gig: cool it a bit with Wenger, we don’t want to see anything remotely along the lines of the Anders Frisk affair, and so on. And that Mourinho, finding his trusted instincts re media management restricted in this way, wants his new employers to understand the consequences of not granting him a total free hand.
Of course there is an alternative to blaming individual players in public when a result falls short, one that doesn’t involve manufacturing some other narrative (that word): take it on himself. And I think an earlier incarnation of this manager could have handled that – but that this later incarnation is damaged goods, and lacks the impermeable self-belief of previous years.
Which is also why I think it’s taken as long as this for Mourinho to address the Rooney problem. I think he’s scarred by how things went for him at Madrid after he dropped Casillas, but doesn’t have the skill set Guardiola showed with Hart – how to be decisive without being divisive.
Those Rooney wheels now finally, surely, in motion: the player starting in the League Cup because he won’t start against Leicester in the league. Perhaps we shouldn’t underestimate the political difficulty, or expect Mourinho to measure up completely against Guardiola, who, let’s remember, would have been our first choice too. Look how much flak Brendan Rodgers caught for bravely moving Gerrard past an automatic starting place (an almighty favour to Liverpool, yet described by pundits to this day as “disgraceful”), and how long he lasted as manager subsequently.
This idea of Rooney as the untouchable is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s all post-Fergie and started when Moyes rewarded the want-away player with a five year deal on three hundred grand a week, the captain’s armband and the promise to build a team around him. This extraordinary commitment to the player was reinforced by van Gaal and his ‘my captain always plays’ attitude, regardless of form. Mourinho appears to have followed the same approach with no obvious sign of Wazza’s star being on the wane (pun intended) in the eyes of the latest manager.
Cast your mind back almost four years and it was clear that Fergie was considering a United side post-Rooney. The player had previously, at times been shunted out to the left hand side. Now the notion that no player was indispensible was being reinforced when Rooney was seen as an occasional bench-starter rather than in the starting eleven. The leaving out of Rooney for the home C.L. against Mourinho’s Madrid caused a bit of a stir, but fans were used to Fergie shuffling the pack, so it really was no big deal. Add to that his reference to a supposed Rooney transfer request and it was clear that Fergie was engineering a split with the player. If Fergie hadn’t retired it’s likely that Rooney would have been gone three years ago.
Rooney starting against Northampton could be a sign that he will be on the bench against Leicester and that Mourinho is acknowledging Rooney’s less than invincible performances. If so, there will be a media kerfuffle on Saturday but in the grand scheme of things it’s no big deal and if it does happen, it will not come a moment too soon.
The idea that Rooney starting at Npton means he won’t start at Leicester is the most wishful of wishful thinking. Rooney demands to play every game, presumably the idea was for him to get a hatful of goals against a League One side, rather than looking like a player that wouldn’t get in it. He’s playing against Leicester.
He’s done everything outside of football to make himself as undroppable as possible, with commercial deals and trying to be a big personality behind the scenes. Mostly though he keeps his place because of the threat of insurrection if he’s dropped. As soon as he thinks he doesn’t start regularly he will cause as much disruption as possible until he either gets his place back or causes as much destruction as possible on the way out. At least in my opinion. He’s caused problems before, when he was rested in the Euros he briefed the press immediately that he was ‘surprised’ to be left out, with other leaks here and there that probably came from him. So a manager (and a chief exec) have to be sure they’re strong enough to handle the fallout. Fergie was but he left, Moyes and Woodward weren’t and it doesn’t look like Mourinho is yet either.
Watched Rooney on Thursday Focus on MUTV and it just confirmed how influential the little prick is. Clearly it was a put-up job to let him appear and ingratiate himself with the fans as he talked up his charity work. But the arsehole wore a Mike Tyson tee shirt !! How can anyone who gives a fuck about his fellow man or woman do that?
Then he refers to criticism of him as rubbish and you realise it’s all a United establishment stunt. Of course nobody on MUTV will risk their jobs by having a pop at Rooney. There’s far too much money at stake for anyone to rock the boat.
Have fans got two more years of this bollocks? Spare me.