WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Eleven points behind Manchester City, beaten at Huddersfield and knocked out of the Carabao Cup by a Championship team. What is the reason for these poor results? Well, according to José Mourinho it’s “bad luck”, certainly with the last one.

One of Mourinho’s biggest failings is his inability to admit that anything is ever wrong. He will happily discuss what other managers do/did wrong, particularly those who preceded him at Old Trafford, going on to tell us who he wouldn’t have sold and who wouldn’t have gone out on loan.

He will then regale us with tales of what a wonderful manager he is and remind us, incessantly, of how many trophies he has won.

He says he needs to buy. This after spending just over £290 million on players since his arrival. The word is that he wants another £200 million to buy some left footed players to bring more balance to his squad!

That may be the case but, amongst the favourites to join United in January is Antoine Griezmann, who is right footed!

He already has left footed players in Marcos Rojo, Luke Shaw and Daley Blind so the only area where he may have a point is the left wing where Ivan Perišić would have been a good addition.

Despite his assessment that he needs to buy new players, (always a decent cop-out when a manager isn’t sure what to do), may we also suggest that he takes a long, hard look at his tactics.

We watched the Bristol City versus Manchester United Carabao Cup semi-final and, regardless of Mourinho’s post-match utterings, United were awful.

We lost count of the number of times Romero was content just to boot the ball straight back to Bristol City. We got fed up with watching the passes go backwards. We were irritated by the amount of times possession was either lost or given away cheaply.

Marcos Rojo is a decent defender but somebody, preferably his manager, needs to tell him that a simple pass, in order to retain possession, is often preferable to his constant habit of launching the ball forward, invariably straight to the opposition.

Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial should be advised that there is a limit to the amount of players they can dribble past or, in the case of Rashford, try and run through! They both try and take on at least one too many and this often results in the ball being lost.

United players in general need to spend some time, in fact a lot of time, on the training pitch getting to know what their team mates look like. Maybe then, on the pitch, they will stand a better chance of actually passing the ball to each other and not to the opposition.

The ball, however hard it is struck, will not travel through a player standing immediately in front of it at the time. This lesson is for Antonio Valencia, Marcus Rashford and anybody else who thinks the opposite.

None of the above problems can be attributed to bad luck! If the ball hits the post or the corner flag the result is the same. It is bad finishing, not bad luck!

We recently published an article about how simple the approach of Pep Guardiola is to the game of football. His goalkeeper Ederson, for example, would never do what Romero was doing against Bristol City. He always, unless circumstances absolutely prevent it, passes to one of his own players. He never just hits a long, hopeful ball forward.

City are very adept at passing the ball to each other. This is something they obviously spend time practising in training. If it is a tactic which helps to get you eleven points clear at the top of the table, then why is Mourinho not using it?

Why does he appear to ignore the fact that his players can’t keep the ball for more than a few seconds, unless they are going backwards or sideways of course?

Now, to be honest, we here at WSA would like Mourinho at Old Trafford for a long time. We also think he will win things at United. We also, however, accept that it must be very frustrating watching your near neighbours beating everything in sight. This feeling of frustration is likely to grow when City comfortably beat Bristol City in the semi-final of the Carabao Cup and, probably, go on to win the trophy.

But instead of whining about how they celebrate, instead of telling the fans, who have travelled hundreds of miles in winter on a Wednesday night, that the team were unlucky, which is just totally untrue, and instead of defending some performances that were, at best, mediocre, we would much prefer if José just came out and spoke the truth.

Tell it like it is and stop trying to be Mister Tact & Diplomacy to protect the players. Yes, good performances and winning football matches means that the players will keep you in a job, but the opposite is also true and do you really think the players care as long as they get paid?