Season of woe goes on as United lose ground
FORGET the title, it is now all about ensuring a Champions League place for Manchester United.
Jose Mourinho’s miserable Christmas continued with a second successive Premier League draw following the Carabao Cup exit at Bristol City.
It would have been worse but for Jesse Lingard’s added-time equaliser to deny Burnley their first league win at Old Trafford for 55 years.
The goal completed a secondhalf comeback by United – half-time substitute Lingard also netted their first – after they found themselves 2-0 down at the break.
But draws are simply not good enough for United as they chase Manchester City, who will be 15 points clear if they stretch their winning run to 18 games at Newcastle tonight.
Four points dropped in two games while Chelsea and Tottenham have won both of their holiday games so far means the battle for top-four places has intensified.
Perhaps this result should not have come as too much of a surprise. It continued Burnley’s impressive away form against the top six clubs – they had already won at Chelsea while drawing at Tottenham and Liverpool.
It was also something of a ghost from Christmas past for United. While their modern-day Boxing Day record is impressive, 19 wins out of 23 in the Premier League, if you go back in history it is not so clever against the Clarets. Burnley had won on all three previous occasions the clubs had met on Boxing Day – the most recent was in 1963, which was Mourinho’s first Christmas on this planet.
They nearly made it four wins but United clawed a point they deserved although they will be kicking themselves for going two goals behind before they really got started.
Whereas United had conceded late goals at Ashton Gate and in the draw at Leicester, they were caught cold yesterday and were a goal down after just two minutes.
Marcos Rojo brought down Jeff Hendrick and from Jack Cork’s free-kick Rojo and Romelu Lukaku both failed to clear, leaving Ashley Barnes to score from close range.
Perhaps Mourinho needs to tell Lukaku to stay out of his own penalty area. The Belgian striker was at fault for both City’s goals in the recent Manchester derby and he almost gave one away in similar fashion against Bournemouth. While that goal might have been scrappy, Burnley’s second was pure quality with Stefan Defour curling a superb free-kick over the wall and into the top corner.
Nick Pope clawed Paul Pogba’s header round the post and Ben Mee cleared Marcus Rashford’s shot off the line to preserve Burnley’s lead at the break and spark a tactical reshuffle by Mourinho.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, making his first Premier League start of the season, and Rojo were replaced by Lingard and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
Nemanja Matic moved into the back four and the changes sparked the necessary improvement with United spending virtually the entire second period in the Burnley half.
Lingard somehow missed from point-blank range when Ashley Young’s cross set him up, his effort hitting Pope in the face before rolling along the crossbar. But he made amends with a delightful backheel flick from Young’s low cross.
For a while United peppered Burnley with shots and crosses but when a second goal did not come, they seemed to lose heart and momentum as the Clarets continued to put bodies on the line to get in front of everything thrown at them.
When the board went up showing five minutes of added time United moved up a gear again. And Lingard was alert to
fire home a low shot – his sixth in the past seven games – after Juan Mata’s shot had bounced off Mee in a crowded penalty area.
It provided some relief but it was another frustrating day for Mourinho, who must be sick of the sight of Burnley.
They held his Chelsea team to a 1-1 draw in February 2015, slugged out a goalless draw at Old Trafford last season before yesterday’s backs-to-the-wall episode.