Mourinho savages misfiring forwards

JOSE MOURINHO laid into his flair players after Manchester United were held to a goalless draw at home by West Brom.

Expensive recruits Anthony Martial and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, plus academy graduates Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard bore the brunt of the manager’s frustrations after an eighth Premier League draw of the season at Old Trafford.

Mourinho said his flaky front four were inconsistent and contrasted their performances with the rest of the outfield players, who barely gave West Brom a sniff of goal. ‘At some clubs, talent is always welcome even if it’s not consistent,’ he said.

‘One day yes, one day no. For teams at this level if you want to win things, you need to be consistent.

‘Today for 90 minutes, Antonio Valencia was consistent, Marcos Rojo, Eric Bailly, Ashley Young, Marouane Fellaini, Michael Carrick. The other ones were not consistent.

‘It was a flash of talent, a glimpse. Almost a goal, but we need to kill opponents. Somebody who saw our goals record would think we are a defensive team, a counterattack team that doesn’t have ambition. But it is completely the opposite.

‘Rashford, Lingard, Mkhitaryan, Martial, see how may goals they score. Zlatan and [Juan] Mata are the ones with more goals. If it wasn’t for them the situation gets even more difficult.’

Ibrahimovic, who has now completed a three-match ban and will be available to face Everton on Tuesday, has scored 26 goals — the same as the four mentioned by Mourinho put together.

Rashford has not scored a league goal since September while Mkhitaryan, the £28million signing failed to beat Albion goalkeeper Ben Foster when put clean through and was later replaced by Wayne Rooney.