THE VERDICT: WEST HAM 0 UNITED 0
IF he didn’t know it before, Jose Mourinho has been left in no doubt about his most important player at United.
David de Gea may dominate the club’s Player of the Year awards – and fans have lost count of the amount of points he’s saved them in recent times. But a goalkeeper can only do so much. De Gea, for instance, could not turn this goalless draw with West Ham into three points.
The cutting edge is where matches are won and lost. That’s why traditionally the strikers have earned the big bucks and why the Ballon d’Or has been a personal duel between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi for a decade.
Okay, Messi isn’t a typical striker but he scores goals like one.
And over the past couple of weeks that’s what United have missed – what Mourinho has missed.
Without his ‘Sergeant’ he’s lost his firepower. And that’s why the United manager will be crossing everything possible in the hope Romelu Lukaku returns for the FA Cup final against Chelsea.
The Belgian does not possess the bewildering talents of a Ronaldo or Messi – of course he doesn’t. But he is pivotal to United – just as that pair are to Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively.
A total of 27 goals in his debut season at Old Trafford has made him one of Mourinho’s untouchables. Perhaps the most untouchable of all. The ankle injury that forced him to limp out of the win against Arsenal last month was not considered serious enough to rule him out of the cup final.
But in the weeks following, concern has grown.
And United’s performances without him leading the line has only intensified the anxiety around the club.
Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford spectacularly fluffed their lines in their audition against Brighton last week.
Dropped for last night’s clash with West Ham, their hopes of starting at Wembley look to be as good as dead.
It was the turn of Alexis Sanchez and Jesse Lingard to offer an alternative solution to Mourinho. And while Lingard, in particular, showed zest and imagination, a United forward line without Lukaku is light.
While that is affirmation of Mourinho’s conviction that £75m would be well spent on a man often dismissed as a flat track bully, it underlines his concerns about the depth of quality at his disposal.
Against a West Ham side that has looked wretched for much of the campaign, United created only a handful of chances. A double save from Adrian in 12 6 None None 44% 56% 11 1 56,902 Noble Pogba Jonathan Moss the first-half to deny first Sanchez and then Luke Shaw – via the post – represented United’s best period of the match.
It was symptomatic of a game where neither side had much to play for – a point being enough to secure second place for United and their highest Premier League finish since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement.
But that will not be enough for Mourinho. His public criticism of his players was supposed to provoke a reaction.
But to turn second place into first, it will take a consistency he simply doesn’t believe enough of his players possess.
A consistency that Lukaku does.