As a Chelsea fan it isn't surprising to see a post like this come up. Chelsea fans were used to discussing this sort of stuff, and there were often polarising opinions like there were on here, especially during his second stint with us. It seems like he's still struggling to settle on what identity he wants this team to have, or like he can't execute the identity he wants the team to have, for various reasons.
Now I must say, from my opinion, the OP has a valid shout. Jose relies on his forwards individual quality a lot, and also likes to create counter attacking opportunities for his team. Problem is, at big clubs like United, that ideal scenario for him doesn't happen too often. Too often do the likes of United and CFC face low block, defensive teams and that's where his teams seem to struggle to create high quality chances. His teams still create chances, but not many of them are of high quality.
A high majority of United's goals seem to come from crosses and set pieces - the threat from the middle of the park isn't high at all, and against low blocks that's a very important part of the attacking philosophy you have - one thing systems that are successful against these sort of teams have in common is that they all stretch the opposition so that they can create chances through the middle of the park. Restricting yourself to just crossing mostly in these situations makes your attack seem blunt.
Just to bring in an example closer to home; Conte implements the juego de posicion/positional play philosophy for how his teams attack, and it's honestly refreshing to see compared to how we used to transition going forward. The contrast in how we move forward with the ball and how we break down low blocks is just very different, a lot more organised. You can see recognisable patterns in our forward play now, and most importantly, it's seems a lot more diverse in general. Almost like the players have a collective playbook in their head on how to approach different situations. Conte has managed to figure out how to use his attacking players to maximum effect.
There are two main problems with Jose when it comes to this issue:
1. He relies on individual quality too much, even though he's put such player at a disadvantage tactically.
2. He hasn't figured out how to use United's more potent attacking players effectively.
To expand on number one, I'll present the case of Eden Hazard. Hazard was at times loaded with way too much defensive work which meant that he wouldn't be able to effect the game to the best of his abilities. Instead of having him closer to the final third where he can settle games, he spent a lot of time marking the opposition full back almost all the way to the byline.
Now Eden's is a great talent so they found a way to make it work somewhat - he still had a great year in the title winning season as he was still deciding games - but he wasn't reaching his full potential. The following season he had a very bad year - in my opinion Mourinho overworked him last season which contributed to the lack of form and a couple of injuries in the season. Also, teams by then had worked out that Chelsea set up their attacks in a pretty simply way - get the ball to Fabregas or Hazard who would usually provide some magic, or search out for Costa. Fabregas usually played the long ball to Costa, which is easy to deal with in a low block, or find Hazard on the left wing, who only had options to pass predictably to the inside of the pitch, and was often double teamed, due to Mourinho's full back choices (refused to play one of the best LBs at the time in Filipe Luis in the title winning season and preferred the more defensifely solid Azpilicueta to play in an unnatural position despite a declining Ivanovic, and even continued to do so after having a summer to purchase a left back he actually liked). Eden was double teamed as Azpilicueta rarely made a threatening overlapping run, thus a lot less effective on the ball as he was isolated. Eden was rarely in the best position to effect the game, which is what Mourinho is failing to do with some of the more talented United players.
Which brings me to my second point: he's not putting the talented United forwards/midfielders in the best position to truly effect the game and create high quality chances. To bring up the Hazard example again, he now finally looks like he'll continue to evolve as a player, whereas under Jose he looked like he's reached his peak. This is due to one simple change Conte brought about - he decided to put Hazard in an area he's more dangerous in - far further forward. He also fixed another major issue which was to bring in a fullback who would complement Eden and the whole team in fact, by providing quality overlaps from full/wingbacks, thus opening the game up more for him, which makes Eden far more effective. Jose is failling to do this with some incredible talent, and his handling/man management hasn't been the best, to add to this. Shaw, Martial, Mkhitaryan and Rashford come to mind.
I feel like some players are way too isolated to create high quality chances. Zlatan's link up play kind of is being under utilised - he's very effective at keeping the ball under pressure, which gives you the option of holding up the play effectively, which can bring in other players, and create gaps for other players to move into. A false 9 is almost like a pivot, but the mechanism of that pivot is barely being moved. It's a shame Pogba and Zlatan haven't developed a close relationship which brings them together more often than not because it could've been a lot more devistating. It's actually a bit of a staple in Jose's old game plan at CFC - I thought Zlatan and Pogba would have a Drogba/Lampard type relationship but it just hasn't been there for various reasons.
At United he has much better attacking full backs in Valencia and Shaw but they aren't used to create space for their team mates effectively because Jose is naturally conservative and this can be detrimental to the team going forward. He'll rarely have both fullbacks bombing forward. He naturally doesn't like taking these risks. That's the sort of manager he is and he's well within his rights to be like that because as he's shown in his career, with the right players it can be very effective. His systems are usually set up to take advantage of mistakes, rather than proactively create opportunities where these mistakes or even just top class moves can happen through good attacking football. It's a shame because some players like Martial or Mkhitaryan would really benefit from constantly having these sorts of movements around them, creating more space for them to implement some damage.
The United squad right now isn't suited to play the way Jose truly is used to, but you have to ask yourself as a United fan - are you okay with him essentially performing complete surgery on the squad? He'll get rid of a talent like Martial and bring in a more Mourinho esque player in someone like Perisic, who in my opinion is of less quality because Martial has a pretty high ceiling. He did the same at CFC who had built up a very impressive set of attacking talent. He had Lukaku, De Bruyne, Mata, Schurrle, Hazard and Willian at a point at Chelsea, and managed to let quite a few of them go. De Bruyne and Lukaku are now some of the best in their position, and Mata is still doing a decent job at United. They got replaced by more Mourinho-esque players like Mo Salah and Cuadrado who both failed to impress. A similar thing can happen at United, with the way things are looking.
There just doesn't seem to be a good identity when United go forward with the ball. There doesn't seem to be a joy when the players get the ball back to push on and get that goal. Compare that to how we look to score more often than not when we do regain the ball now, and it's day and night almost. Chelsea's attacking philosophy is clear - use wingbacks to stretch the opposition to create the three forwards more space centrally to create quality chances. It's difficult to stop because we put our best players in the areas of the pitch where they can effect the game well. With United it's still not.
We had the same problem at CFC - it started much more promising in his second term with us of course, but he reverted back to what's more natural to him due to a few bad results around January in his second season and performances since then went on a slow decline. This might be presumptuous, but with United it seems like he's hit that place already.
We'll definitely know for sure how things will turn out next season though. Jose can't afford to continue like this when he'll have another transfer window to get who he wants. Next season is make or break for him.
(PS - sorry for the lengthy post, and thank you for reading.)
Yep, we went from hitting the post to skying shots over the bar now.