When Jose Mourinho spent over £150m on the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Nemanja Matic and Lindelof without releasing any regular senior team player the sky was expected to be his landing spot having won the Europa League and League Cup the previous season. Mourinho's new side would soon start the new season in an impeccable form scoring 10 goals without conceding against the likes of West Ham, Swansea and Leicester City with fans predicting an unbeaten campaign and Romelu Lukaku scoring goals for fun.
Fast forward to the moment and you realise how football can change in a short while considering their is already talk of the Portuguese favouring a negative system with a star studded attack. So how did it get to this ? Having lost 1-0 away to Chelsea in Stamford Bridge on Sunday, it became clear that the United manager went into the game with a defensive mindset having started eight defensive players in his line-up. To illustrate better, United were so poor that striker Lukaku had only 24 touches in the whole game losing the ball 10 times . To make matters worse, the Belgian striker was so starved of support that he failed to make a single touch in Chelsea's 18 yard box coupled with his one shot in the game and a mere 16 passes. While it might seem unfair to blame the manager for the Belgian's poor form (hasn't scored in his last seven games across all competitions) it should be noted that despite missing Paul Pogba (hamstring injury) , the manager has failed to start numerous attacking players like Juan Mata, Anthony Martial and Jese Lingard often going for a defensive 3-4-3 formation with only Henrik Mkhitaryan and Marcus Rashford the only attacking players in the starting line -up .
Going by statistics, Jose Mourinho's United has scored only one goal in 630 minutes away from home (10 league games) in games with the league's top six (Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham) . To make matters worse the Portuguese has failed to win away against the top six in three years with his last win coming in the 2-1 Anfield defeat of Liverpool in 2014. What this entails is that the Portuguese employs the style of containing and suffocating his opponents away from home, with the mindset of getting a draw rather than going for a win despite the array of attacking players in his side. While this might have been condoned in Chelsea where he won the league in 2015, Manchester United is a club that have enjoyed success synanumously with their attacking flair and on-field results.
What is even more annoying to United fans is the attacking success and excitement their "Noisy Neighbours"- Manchester City seem to be enjoying under Pep Guardiola having scored 52 goals across all competitions already this season (17 games) as well as leading second placed United with seven points (+31 goal difference whIle United have +18).
While there is still 28 more league games to go before the end of the season, it might seem too early for criticism considering how United have positively evolved under the Portuguese, the fact still remains he sets up his team in a defensive style that stiffles and frustrates the attacking players in his side .
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