José Mourinho will take his Manchester United team down to Swansea in an attempt to qualify for the next round of the Carabao Cup.
It isn’t a competition which is among his two top priorities but, suddenly, this game has become quite important, to Mourinho, the players and the fans.
This is because had United attacked Liverpool, at Anfield, just over a week ago, it is entirely possible they would have left with all three points.
In fact, Tottenham Hotspur showed just how easy it is to score against that pitiful excuse for a defence by putting four past them at White Hart Wembley, which is now becoming like a second home to them, which, as it is their second home, is quite appropriate.
This may well have resulted in the players approaching the Huddersfield game with a different attitude as that appears to have been the problem.
Whilst watching the game we were of the impression that United lost because they didn’t create any chances and kept giving the ball away. These two defects along with some Liverpool-like defending basically handed Huddersfield their two goals, but what do we know? If Ander Herrera says the attitude was wrong then the attitude must have been wrong.
As we were saying, if United could have collected three points from Anfield, the chances are that they would have beaten Huddersfield because the momentum would still have been strong as would their self-belief.
As it turned out, the players were probably left wondering why they had not been allowed to attack a team with a terrible defence and this may have caused some doubt in their minds as to what they should be doing against Huddersfield. What happened was that their manager dealt them 14 and they didn’t know whether to stick or twist and ended up doing neither.
This, as we all know, caused José Mourinho to accuse his players of playing the game in the wrong frame of mind and with the wrong attitude. He should know, he is the manager and was, therefore, the cause of it, whatever he likes to think.
So this game in the Carabao Cup takes on a little additional importance because the fans and, presumably, the manager, will want to see a vastly improved performance.
Quite how many of the players will get the chance to improve their performance is debatable as United and the other the big clubs will probably “rest” some players, which is a polite way of saying that they want to look at what is coming through the ranks occasionally and this is the time to do it.
Mourinho has already hinted that Lukaku, who hasn’t broken into a sweat in the last couple of games, De Gea, who never breaks into a sweat and Mata, who doesn’t know what sweat is, will all be rested. Of these three, Lukaku is the one who needs to improve his performance the most now that the goals have dried up.
And finally, a quick mention for the noisy neighbours. Manchester City will entertain Wolves in their first home tie in a cup competition for ages. It will be a tight game for two reasons.
Firstly, City have forgotten how to play cup ties at The Etihad and secondly, Pep Guardiola will tinker with the team for no reason other than “it’s his team and he can“. Much as Pep hates losing he will still give youth a chance in this game and, if he loses, it is one competition less to think about.
Like his Old Trafford counterpart, this competition is not among his two top priorities, it is just a convenience to give fringe players a run-out.
As we have retired from the prediction game, (actual scores, at least), all we will say is that we expect Manchester to be represented by two clubs in the next round.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 