Carrying form from Turf Moor to Turin...
A JOURNALIST from La Repubblica justified the expense at Burnley on Sunday by squeezing in two questions about Juventus and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Mourinho mulled queries and the United press officer motioned to leave before Mourinho demurred. “Italian press, I have always to take good care of them because they took good care of me when I was there,” he recalled.
“Juventus is one of the teams in Europe who invested to win the Champions League, because they don’t need to invest to win the Scudetto,” Mourinho stressed. “They win the Scudetto for six or seven years.”
Gary Neville described Juve as United’s ‘benchmark’ in the late 90s and it is the case again as they strive for a new era of domestic hegemony in England.
The last time Juventus did not win the Scudetto Edwin van der Sar was still in goal for United.
Scanning through Massimiliano Allegri’s squad, it is easy to see why Mourinho was attracted to a handful of them.
A move for Miralem Pjanic was vetoed so United could prise Paul Pogba away from Turin and the fallback target that summer was Blaise Matuidi, who moved to Juve from Paris Saint-Germain a year ago.
Mourinho coveted Leonardo Bonucci when he was unattainable, signed Juan Cuadrado and Sami Khedira, while Alex Sandro was earmarked as the ideal left-back target.
Maybe the sole beneficiary of United’s split transfer strategy is Luke Shaw, who has played every minute this campaign, scored his first career goal and is back in the England squad.
Shaw is 23 and Sandro 27 – each symbolise the manager and the board’s preferred profile of player yet Mourinho has coaxed the best form out of Shaw in three years.
United reaped the benefits of having two natural full-backs on Sunday at Burnley, where Shaw excelled again and Antonio Valencia enjoyed his best outing in months.
Winless Burnley, unable to adjust to the maligned Thursday-Sunday scheduling that Europa League football entails, were ideal opponents but United penned them in quickly through the advancing full-backs’ exemplary pressing. Shaw and Valencia decamped to Tottenham’s third for much of the first-half last week, too.
Ashley Young was consistent for United throughout last term but the right-footer did not offer natural width down the left and that was a patent problem in the FA Cup semifinal and final. Shaw has Gareth Southgate to thank for ousting Young at club and international level, having missed the World Cup.
So the dilemma United have is when or if Shaw succumbs to injury the [il]logical replacement is Marcos Rojo – a walking disaster there.
Rojo, impulsively bought on the back of a World Cup, has not started at left-back since the 2017 League Cup final when Nathan Redmond had him on toast and his poorest period with United came there in the final months of the Louis van Gaal era.
On the right, Valencia’s crosses madden United supporters as he plays give-ball with the first man yet the alternatives are the wantaway Matteo Darmian, or Diogo Dalot.
Dalot is 19, arrived from a league where Victor Lindelof was a regular and his eight career appearances were at left-back.
United’s talent pool is shallow compared with Juve’s depth.
At Parma on Saturday, Allegri overlooked specialist right-backs Joao Cancelo and Mattia de Sciglio in favour of the workhorse Cuadrado. If Sandro is sidelined, they used to have Kwado Asamoah but now Italy international Leonardo Spinazzola is the Brazilian’s understudy, with De Sciglio capable of playing on either flank. The oldest of Juve’s fullback quartet is Sandro. United have two 33-year-olds in Valencia and Young, while Darmian and Rojo are 28. Suddenly Ed Woodward’s aversion to signing Sandro and okaying Dalot [the release clause helped] are more obvious, although Shaw has so far vindicated a calculated risk. A full-back overhaul similar to the one Pep Guardiola was allowed to preside over last year is needed at United. “Fantastic players,” Mourinho added of Juve. Cristiano and [Emre] Can and Bonucci, absolutely top.” He promised the Bianconeri ‘are going to have two very difficult matches against us.’ Particularly if Valencia and Shaw can translate their form from Turf Moor to Turin. Mourinho needs to take good care of them. Samuel Luckhurst