JOSE’S GIANTS COULD BE HEAD AND SHOULDERS ABOVE THE REST
SIZE matters. At least it may do in the Premier League this season. Much has been made of the cost of Jose Mourinho’s revamp of Manchester United but not its sheer physical dimensions. Much like Professor Simon Peach, played by Benny Hill in The Italian Job, Mourinho likes them big.
Of the four players he bought this summer, three are giants: Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Eric Bailly. United had two in David de Gea and Marouane Fellaini already. Some felt United lost their aura after Sir Alex Ferguson left but, lining up in the tunnel, this team are now an intimidating sight.
Mourinho knew, some months out, that there was a chance he would be managing at Old Trafford this season. He watched their games with special interest, particularly Fellaini’s performances. “He’s not Maradona,” he told friends, “but he’ll be awkward to play against.” Mourinho said Fellaini was one of those players who hurt opponents by accident.
His knee would clatter into yours in a tackle, and you’d limp for 10 minutes. His arm would fly out as you jumped, and make your ears ring.
Coincidentally, this was what Wayne Rooney said about Pogba. In training, he bruised you. He didn’t mean to. It just happened. He was all sharp edges and hard surfaces.
There was one moment in last Friday’s win over Southampton when Pogba’s athleticism drew gasps.
He had blundered with his first touch, given the ball away a few times, but then went into an aerial challenge with Dusan Tadic. The Southampton man is not the tallest, but at 1.80m he is not short, either.
Pogba outjumped him by the length of his torso.
Pairing him with Fellaini in midfield, there is no doubt Mourinho intends making a meeting with Manchester United memorable.
Ibrahimovic has already beaten Wes Morgan of Leicester and Simon Francis of Bournemouth – both club captains and the defensive rocks of popular cliche – into submission.
Bailly is making Manchester United fans forget the imposing influence of Nemanja Vidic.
If playing United becomes the biggest physical challenge of the season, teams will take that memory into the return games.
Bruising teams and players intimidate even before the whistle. It is no coincidence that Arsenal lost much of their fear factor once Patrick Vieira and Gilberto Silva left. For all their skill, the Invincibles were a huge team in central defence and central midfield.
Arsène Wenger complains about the brute force used against his players now, but contemporaries argue he was the originator.
Everyone had to get bigger because of Arsenal and it was not a point lost on Mourinho.
Michael Ballack, Didier Drogba, Petr Cech, Nemanja Matic – Mourinho made sure that no rival could bully Chelsea.
He has transferred that philosophy to Manchester United. It isn’t the money that will make Old Trafford such a painful place to visit this season, more the size of the project.
At face value, Sam Allardyce’s view of Marcus Rashford makes perfect sense. He is not playing regularly for Manchester United, so it is difficult to select him for England. He’s only 18, so it may be better that he goes with the Under-21 team, and gains experience of international football that way, rather than sitting on the bench with the first team, watching others.
The alternate view, however, comes from Slaven Bilic, the West Ham manager. He was talking about another player, but the point remains. When we met up a few weeks ago, Bilic said that, as an international manager – he was in charge of the Croatia team that eliminated England in Euro 2008 qualifying – he preferred his reserve strikers to not be regulars at their clubs.
‘I thought it helped if they weren’t playing every game,” he said. “You look at Andy Carroll, he is used to standing there, getting ready, 20 minutes to go, we need a goal. A player who starts every week, he is not used to being put in that position, so maybe he is bothered by it.
“I had Eduardo with me for Croatia. He couldn’t get in the Arsenal team but I used him for impact and he was great for us. He was familiar with that late pressure: it never worried him.”
And, of course, it can be argued that all goalscorers are exposed to the demands of needing an equaliser or winner.
That if Leicester or Tottenham are a goal down with 15 minutes to go, Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane are only too aware everyone is looking to them.
Yet at the last European Championship, against Iceland, when England seemed to shrink collectively, it was Rashford, introduced for five minutes, who came on and played utterly without fear. Just a thought.
Pep Guardiola does not like to gamble. At Manchester City, he demands his players make certain in front of goal. So a striker with a 75 percent chance of scoring is still instructed to look for a teammate whose odds are better. Square it to the guy with the whole goal to aim at, pass it to the one who cannot miss.
Arsenal have been playing this way for a long time – remember the penalty-kick pass between Robert Pires and Thierry Henry – but Guardiola’s teams seem to perfect the art. Certainly, in just three matches, he is beginning to make the hit-and-hope nature of Premier League football seem a bit daft.
How many times do you see players attempt ridiculously ambitious shots from poor positions? In the meantime, Guardiola’s players are picking their way through, leaving nothing to chance.
And he’s got great forwards: Sergio Aguero, Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne. That helps. Yet the feeling Guardiola is taking the game on is unmistakable. At the very least, he is making the rest of the Premier League seem a little unevolved.