MOURINHO: I want my players to feel the pressure
Jose’s side short of what it takes to win the title
JOSE MOURINHO’S Manchester United attack reminds me of one of those fantasy football front fours.
You’d be salivating into your Scampi Fries down at the old Dog and Duck if you’d managed to squeeze Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney, Henrikh Mkhitaryan (below) and one of Anthony Martial, Ashley Young, Juan Mata or Marcus Rashford into your side.
The problem for Mourinho, however, is that out on the pitch, where it really matters, I’m not sure how well they will actually knit together.
Don’t get me wrong, they’ll fire in fits and spurts and they may even hit the ground running.
Wes Morgan and Robert Huth can bet their last pay packet Ibra & Co will be champing at the bit in this afternoon’s Community Shield against Leicester.
The same goes for Bournemouth’s defence down at the Vitality Stadium next Sunday when the two sides get their Premier League campaigns under way.
It’s just that I don’t see them doing it consistently over the course of a 38-game campaign, which is why I have United finishing fourth in People Sport’s pre-season predictions.
Compare their front four to that of Manchester City, who I fancy for the title.
Potency
Leroy Sane is a top-quality addition and when you combine his potency with the threat of Kevin De Bruyne, the speed of Raheem Sterling and, injury permitting, the nailed- on 25 to 30 goals Sergio Aguero will get you, it looks a much better fit. City’s front four will pick itself, with Wilfried Bony and Kelechi Iheanacho as back-up, and, with Pep Guardiola conducting that orchestra, they will score hatfuls of goals this season. Down the road at Old Trafford, I’m not sure I could say, with any degree of certainty, who the first-choice front four will be? You have to imagine it will be Ibra up top, with Rooney in the 10, and Mkhitaryan on the left or right. But who plays on the opposite side – Young, Martial, Rashford? It’s Rashford’s first full season, so he will be a marked man and Martial is more of a known quantity now too. We’ve not even got to the quandary Mourinho is likely to have over Rooney as well – at some stage this season it might be the case that the club captain may not be a regular in the side. The Portuguese gave Juan Mata the flick at Chelsea after he’d been player of the year two seasons on the bounce. And you can argue that Rooney’ s contribution to United’s cause has, of late, been considerably less than the Spaniard’s was to the Blues. Another problem for the new United boss is that this is a squad which has been used to finishing outside the top four, having done so in two of the last three seasons. Rashford, Martial, Daley Blind and Luke Shaw all have to get that winning
feeling back and I don’t think that is something you can do automatically in a few months.
The balance and blend in Mourinho’s side also needs addressing because, although they have such players as Ibrahimovic and Rooney at one end of the scale, I don’t think they have the breadth of talent that City have in the 21, 22 years age group behind them.
United new boy Eric Bailly is a player we will talk about in years to come in the same way we talk about Etihad skipper Vinny Kompany, he is a very good player and has a lot of potential.
But, at 22, he’s raw and he hasn’t played a lot of football at the highest level.
We’ll get an idea against Claudio Ranieri’s men of the XI that Mourinho considers to be his strongest line-up and, of course, his strongest front four.
But even if they walk away from Wembley with winners’ medals in their pockets, I just don’t see them trousering the gong that counts at the end of the Premier League season.