Soulless stalemate damns Mourinho

IT’S maybe a bit harsh to refer to Manchester United’s current manager as Jose van Gaal but the statistics are beginning to look particularly damning.

Yesterday’s soulless goalless draw against West Brom was the eighth time in 15 Premier League matches that United have been held at Old Trafford this season; Hull City, Burnley and Bournemouth are among the other ‘giants’ to have left with a point.

United hogged 75 per cent possession but mustered only three shots on target with it. Fifth place now looks by far the likeliest finish for Mourinho — exactly where his muchcriticised predecessor finished 12 months ago.

Mourinho had a heavy list of absentees with Ander Herrera, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Juan Mata, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Paul Pogba all either injured or suspended.

But his starting line-up still cost more than £200milliion and afterwards the United manager appeared to blame his young, attacking front four of Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard for not winning the game.

Ben Foster’s two important saves both came from long-distance Rashford efforts. The teenager hasn’t scored a league goal since September, though, and rarely made the runs into the box that No9s should.

‘We have had a lot of this, total control but the goals didn’t come,’ grumbled Mourinho after the game.

‘Sometimes because the goalkeeper was magnificent, deja vu, other times because (we could) not score a goal even one on one. It was a game that we totally deserved to win.’

West Brom manager Tony Pulis said afterwards: ‘When you come up against clubs with more money and talent, you have to be organised.’

And Albion were, as they frustrated the home side.