United way? There isn’t one any more
Despite their heroics against Juventus this is team who have lost their identity
IT is difficult for former Manchester United players to analyse the current team right now. That’s simply because the club is a completely different beast from the one they knew six years ago under Sir Alex Ferguson.
There’s the old United, which was dominant, feared and respected, and went for the jugular.
And there’s the new United, who might be good for an FA Cup win and has some good players, but no real identity and who many sides will feel they can beat.
The United of Sir Alex doesn’t relate to the United of today and you cannot view current performances through the achievements and style of the former team.
This club is more like Liverpool in the Nineties under Roy Evans and Gerard Houllier, a team adjusting to its loss of stature.
Take the result against Juventus on Wednesday night, a masterclass from Jose Mourinho and probably the best performance since he took charge.
It was classic Mourinho: no one gave him a chance; the crowd was against him; the team he was playing had been demonstrably better at Old Trafford; plenty of people wanted him to lose.
He loves playing the villain. He’s still at his best when he has to be a reactive coach, relishing stealing a result rather than being overwhelming favourite and asked to play expansive football. And that’s where United are at the moment.
You can argue that in the past they would have gone to clubs even as good as Juventus without an inferiority complex, with more of a swagger. And that they would expect to beat most teams. But that’s not the team right now.
It’s neither realistic nor relevant to talk about the ‘United way’ and judge a performance by whether it measures up to the past. There isn’t a United way at the moment.
There is the present struggle to make the top four in the Premier League, to get through the Champions League group stages and hope for a decent FA Cup run and maybe a trophy at the end of the season.
They are trying to rebuild, to be at least something like they were. Liverpool had the glory of the 2005 Champions League under Rafa Benitez, went close to the title in 2009 and even closer under Brendan Rodgers in 2014.
But you would say it has taken almost 30 years to get back to a point where they start a season as genuine contenders and, even then, not as favourites. That’s more like the journey United are on now. It looks a long, hard one.
BRAVE BUT DOOMED
LIKE an ageing boxer we thought was past his best, Mourinho stepped back into the ring at the Juventus Stadium. You feared he might be exposed. But, like the old pro he is, he can still deliver knockouts.
It’s been fascinating to watch him in t he past si x weeks. When Newcastle came to Old Trafford, you wondered whether he could see out the season.
Since then, there has been the dramatic come back to beat Newcastle, a win against Everton, a game at Stamford Bridge they should have won, the last minutewin at Bournemouth and now probably his best performance in two-and-a-half years at the club.
But I’m not sure that any other manager in world football could have responded in the past few weeks the way Mourinho has.
The sheer pressure and intensity of being at United and seemingly failing so badly would send most coaches into a tailspin. He looked a broken man. Instead, we’ve seen some of his best work since 2015.
I doubt it will be enough to see him at United in years to come. Too much damage has been done and there’s probably not the confidence that he is the man to restore glory.
Mourinho has been a pragmatist, adopting a different approach to get a result in the next game rather than impose some grand idea.
There is some merit in that but in the long run I feel it damages them.
When I was at Tottenham the system and style of play was pretty fixed, so you knew you had Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov up front, Gareth Bale on one side and Aaron Lennon on the other. It meant you knew where players were which led to you releasing the ball quicker. That there is no clear pattern to United’s play slows them down. Players take a crucial extra second to deliver a pass.
Pragmatism can only take you so far. Sometimes you need a bigger vision.
ATTACK IN SPURTS
IT is intriguing to speculate how Mourinho will set up against City. I know there is a temptation to think he will park the bus. And clearly if City are at their best, there is a risk they can humiliate any team.
Mourinho can’t risk something like that ruining his mini-revival. But what remains true about City is that they’ll always give you a chance. And what Lyon have shown and Liverpool showed last season is that they remain vulnerable to a forward line with pace.
As Jurgen Klopp has shown, that doesn’t mean at t acking t hem non-stop. You’re not going to win a possession contest with a Pep Guardiola team, so you have to accept there will be periods of conceding the ball. But if you can deliver a quick ball to an attacking front three, then you can find weak spots. That’s why I’ m hoping Mourinho goes with both Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial alongside Alexis Sanchez in the centre.
Neither John Stones nor Aymeric Laporte will want Sanchez twisting and turning in front of them if they’re playing a high line. And Martial and Rashford up against Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy will mean those full-backs will have to think before they push on.
Either they will take the risk of being exposed or they’ll sit back, making it easier for United to win the ball back in midfield, because City’s dominance is caused by getting those extra men in that area.
You know i t will be a solid midfield t hree, with probably Ander Herrera i nvolved. But attack, within reason, really is the best form of defence.