Mourinho ponders right blend for Watford
london — The goals having dried up for Manchester United in their recent matches, manager Jose Mourinho will hope to find the right attacking formula at high-flying Watford on Tuesday.
It took a fortuitous Lewis Dunk own goal for United to beat Brighton and Hove Albion 1-0 on Saturday and they had paid for their profligacy in a 1-0 Champions League defeat at Basel on their previous outing.
Mourinho said he had played with “too many attackers” against Brighton after aligning Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford and Juan Mata behind Romelu Lukaku and now seems likely to change tack.
“(Against Brighton) our creation was poor,” he said.
“The three players that played with Lukaku did not get the ball. We weren’t successful on the one-against-one.
“Marcus did not have a happy match at all. So we did not have that creation and could expect some defensive problems against a good team on the counter-attack.”
United lost 1-0 at Chelsea at the start of November and only once this month, in a 4-1 home win over Newcastle United, have they exhibited the kind of slick attacking football they showcased earlier in the campaign.
But with Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool all dropping points over the weekend, United are now out on their own in pursuit of runaway leaders Manchester City.
They continue to trail Pep Guardiola’s men by eight points, but as City are not in action until Wednesday, when they host Southampton, United can apply some pressure by closing to within five points of top spot. —