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From a sound beating at Wembley to a safe victory at Old Trafford, it has been a mixed past week for Jose Mourinho’s side. Ed & Paul look back on defeat to Tottenham in north London and ask, “was that the worst defeat under Mourinho?” United gained some redemption with a solid, if not wholly impressive, win over Huddersfield. There’s a look ahead to the weekend’s trip to Newcastle and plenty of listener questions.
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The banner is bad. Great to hear Ed being so forthright on subjects such as Atom and the other one, and women’s rights in countries like Abu Dhabi. Not though on the subject of De Gea’s hair. Firstly, there can be no criticism of David De Gea, who eschews the Champions League winners medals he’d collect annually by moving to his hot sunny home city where his family, friends and life partner happen to live, in order to be the one man team keeping United from mid-table league finishes year after year. Secondly, De Gea’s hair is absolutely fine and in no way the offence to humanity that is Fellaini’s, Willian’s, David Luiz, Sane, Assou-Ekotto (and even now, I wake up screaming thinking of Poborsky).
But what I really want to talk about is the one thing holding back United more than anything else – 4-2-3-1 – and the possibility that Mourinho’s fixation with it lies not is his being blind to something everyone else can see, but in his refusal to play Herrera this season unless absolutely unavoidable, owing to tensions between them dating back to preparations for last season’s Europa semi-final with Celta Vigo.
This would explain the otherwise inexplicable; with old man Carrick and Fellaini unavailable most of the season, Pogba’s own injury and suspension, McTominay being 15 years’ short of his manager’s preferred age for footballers, and Herrera not considered out of vindictive spite, there simply haven’t been more than 2 central midfielders to put in the team most weeks. So Pogba is deployed in a way akin to asking the CEO at a FTSE100 to prioritise their duties as photocopy boy/girl.