Mourinho demands goals ...
. . . while Klopp is unruffled by the absence of one of his star players — the injured Coutinho
ALWAYS A CHAMPION: Nico Rosberg retired at the top JOSE Mourinho returns to the technical area for today’s visit to Everton, and Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp believes Divock Origi is primed to help fill the attacking void left by Philippe Coutinho.
Mourinho is on a mission to urgently improve Manchester United’s disappointing Premier League form.
He served his second one-match touchline ban of the season this week as United beat West Ham 4-1 in the League Cup to set up a two-legged semifinal against Hull in January.
Success in knockout football, as Mourinho’s predecessor Louis van Gaal discovered after winning last season’s FA Cup, is not necessarily considered adequate at Old Trafford.
The statistics do not look good for Mourinho at present as their 20 points is their lowest at this stage of a season since 1989.
United have managed just two victories in their last 10 Premier League matches, and have just failed to win four home league games in a row for the first time since 1990.
Last Sunday’s 1-1 draw at home to West Ham provided more headaches, which the cup victory over the same opponents three days later eased only partially.
United have been scoring freely in cup competitions, beating Feyenoord 4-0 in the Europa League within the last fortnight in addition to scoring four against West Ham.
It has been a different story in the league and Mourinho could do with a dominant display at Goodison Park to silence the critics. “I am always expecting us to score goals, especially as we are playing so well,” Mourinho said. “Sometimes, when you are not playing well, you are just hoping that something happens for you to score a goal — a set-piece, a corner, a mistake, an individual action. But this is not the case for us. We are playing so well and producing so much that the normal thing is to score goals and win matches.
“We are doing that in the cups. We scored four against Feyenoord, four against Fenerbahce, four against West Ham. In the Premier League, apart from scoring four against Leicester and three against Swansea, it was all about zeros and ones.”
United will visit Goodison Park without suspended former Everton star Wayne Rooney, who has collected five domestic bookings.
Juan Mata, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Anthony Martial are the candidates to lead United’s attack this weekend.
Arguably of more concern is the absence of left-back Luke Shaw, who came off at half time on Wednesday with a hamstring problem. Midfielders Paul Pogba and Marouane Fellaini are available after completing one-match suspensions of their own.
It seems a long time since Everton were second in the Premier League, yet it was as recently as September 17 that they occupied that position after collecting 13 points from their opening five matches.
The decline since then has been stark; a sequence of eight league games has brought only one win and six points. Ronald Koeman’s side have only fallen to seventh after last Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at his former club, Southampton. More significant, though, is how close they are to falling much further; they are nine points adrift of the top four, but only eight points above the relegation zone as they head into the weekend. ON THE GOAL TRAIL: It came good for Manchester United against West Ham United in the EFL Cup quarterfinal. Today they travel to Everton where another stern test awaits the side Liverpool will be without Philippe Coutinho, the influential Brazilian playmaker, for about six weeks with the ankle injury sustained in the win over Sunderland last weekend that kept his side firmly in the title race.
Liverpool are also missing England striker Daniel Sturridge as he continues to struggle with a calf injury, which means Belgium international Divock Origi will lead the line in their Premier League clash at Bournemouth today.
After spending most of the season on the substitutes’ bench, Origi is set for his first sustained run in the starting line-up, but Klopp has no concerns about his ability to step up.
“Divock is still 21 and he hasn’t had the most match time in the last few months, so then he had no rhythm, but he is always working, never moaning,” Klopp said. “I was really happy for him having this opportunity and being in the shape to use it. It was really nice to see.”
Liverpool are boosted by the return of forward Roberto Firmino after he recovered from a calf injury, while midfielder Adam Lallana has returned to training following a groin injury, but is unlikely to be risked.
Klopp is wary of the threat posed by Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth, who are up to 12th place after some enterprising displays.
“I have seen a lot of Bournemouth games this season and they did well,” Klopp added. “They are a footballplaying side with a good plan. Eddie Howe is doing a fantastic job there.
“They have, of course, the pressure we all have to win games, but it’s a club that knows about the difficulty of the league.”
However, Howe has injury problems, with goalkeeper Artur Boruc and defender Charlie Daniels again expected to be out after they missed the defeat at the Emirates Stadium.
“We felt Boruc could’ve been available last week but he missed out,” Howe said. — AFP