Mourinho doesn’t seem to have cure for United’s woes
JOSE Mourinho has a few stock moves when a match is going against him. There’s the slight switch of formation, or the impactful half-time substitutions, or Marouane Fellaini’s enormous head.
Against Brighton on Sunday he tried them all, and on reflection perhaps this was the thing most damning about Manchester United’s meek surrender: that as his team sunk in front of him, Mourinho was helpless to turn the tide.
United’s makeshift midfield trio of Paul Pogba and Fred either side of the deep-lying Andreas Pereira was disbanded at the break, after Fred had been culpable in the build-up to Brighton’s third goal; the front three were worse, where the rusty Romelu Lukaku was flanked by the ineffective Anthony Martial and the anonymous Juan Mata.
At half-time, Mourinho brought on Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford for Pereira and Mata, and switched from 4-3-3 to 4-2-3-1. The new duo brought energy and enthusiasm but little invention and so, on the hour, on came the hair.
After failing with something resembling a more cultured approach, Fellaini’s presence as a battering ram did eventually earn an injury-time penalty, but by then the damage had already been done, and Mourinho had been powerless to stop it.
Even his usual touchline antics seemed half-hearted, gravely muttering to his assistants, lightly lecturing an unmoved linesman, throwing up his arms as Mat Ryan ran down the clock.
After the third goal he tried a clap of encouragement but couldn’t seem to find the words to go with it, and ended up staring across the pitch and scratching his head.
At one moment in the second half the manager bellowed at Pogba to play quicker from the back, and his captain replied with an exasperated gesture pointing to the lack of options ahead of him.
This was one of those displays from Pogba where he did little obviously wrong but so rarely had the ball in a threatening area of the pitch, and when he did he was denied any space to exploit it.
Perhaps there are some generous caveats to the performance. Ander Herrera and Nemanja Matic will eventually add steel to a papery midfield.
Lukaku looks short of sharpness, and had he scored his early one-on-one the complexion of the game would have changed.
But even then United probably still would have lost, and had they not, a result wouldn’t have covered over the cracks.
Afterwards, Mourinho was asked what he would do to help eradicate the kind of individual mistakes which he blamed for the defeat to Chris Hughton’s men.
He had little answer, saying only that he would ask the players to train harder; once more he did not seem like a man with the ability to effect real change, and one assessment might be that the players making mistakes — Victor Lindelof, Eric Bailly, Fred — were expensive signings he sanctioned.
The question over the coming weeks is whether these individual errors are just that, or are part of something more ingrained, the symptoms of a team lacking leadership and direction, of a group of players who co-exist but don’t connect, whose Plan A is sketchily drawn and whose Plan B remains the enormous head of Fellaini.
Everyone is allowed a bad day, but the overriding sense at the Amex was that United’s problems are more deeply rooted, and that Mourinho does not seem to have a solution to solve them.
Meanwhile, Pogba believes United must stay “mad” to beat Tottenham and atone for Sunday’s loss at Brighton.
“We always play for the shirt and the fans, this is not the result we or they wanted,” Pogba said. “They should be very mad. We should be mad. Everybody is mad. We are mad.
“The next game we want to change this. We want to be happy at the end of the game, with smiles on their faces and give the fans a nice weekend afterwards.
“We definitely don’t want to lose two games in a row, so we’re going to have to get ready and play much, much better than we did here.
“We’re not here just to play games and be in the Premier League, we are here to win, we are Manchester United and that’s what we do. We want to win trophies, that’s the mentality and the culture of the club.
“We didn’t do it and we are very disappointed.
“There’s lots of games still and we have to stay positive, and by staying positive is how we will fight for a good result against Tottenham.” LIVINGSTON have confirmed that they have parted company with player-manager Kenny Miller after the former Scotland striker refused to give up his onfield duties.
Miller had only been in charge for seven weeks after replacing David Hopkin as boss.
He oversaw just seven games, winning three and drawing two.
But with just two Ladbrokes Premiership games played, the top-flight new boys have decided to part ways with the 38-yearold former Rangers, Celtic and Hibernian striker.
In a statement, the Almondvale outfit claimed Miller’s joint role combining playing and managerial duties “was not working”.
With Miller unwilling to hang up his boots, Livi say they have decided to make a change.
St Mirren could now be set to offer the departed boss the chance to resume his on-field career in Paisley.
In their statement, Livingston said: “Livingston Football Club has been in discussions over the weekend with Kenny Miller and his representatives.
“The club felt that the player-manager role wasn’t working and had requested that Kenny reverted to a full-time manager’s role. Kenny, however, feels that he isn’t ready to give up his football career at this time. As a result the club and Kenny have amicably agreed to part company.
“Livingston Football Club would like to thank Kenny for his honesty and openness, and wish him well for the future.”
Miller’s agent Dave Baldwin posted a statement on his Instagram account backing Livingston’s account of the situation.
It said: “Kenny’s desire to continue his playing career and Livingston’s desire for a full-time manager mean both parties will part ways amicably.
“Kenny would like to place on record his thanks to each and every one of the playing staff who gave him everything in the time he had with them.”