We need to
Yep. He's obviously struggling with the current set up. He gets the ball very deep in contested areas with no option but to play short passes between himself, Shaw and Rooney. He also has a lot of defensive responsibility.
I don't know if things will change. Because Mourinho likes winning the ball in deep areas and wants a lot of cover for his fullbacks.
It's clearly not working.
I probably should've elaborated a tad bit further, but duty called (me taking a dump)
Kidding!
The point I was trying to get with the interchanging references, is that he needs to be playing in a fluid system. If you play Martial as a striker and instruct him to stay in the box, his performance will invariably be disproportionate to when you allow him as a striker to drag defenses ragged, and gather momentum by going into wide areas once the opportunity presents itself. Similarly, it's counter-productive to have Martial playing more as a wide midfielder/winger instead of an inside forward. I believe the plan is to be play Martial as an inside forward, but with Zlatan, Mata and Rooney all in the starting berth at once, it was always going to have ramifications on the single pace outlet from an attacking perspective. Something similar happened to Memphis last season, where we became lopsided, and ultimately predictable. Having Martial and Rashford in close proximity with one another would all but surely mean that Martial would be reinvigorated as their style of play suits one another tremendously.
The way I see it, Jose is creating a side with a similar, (but by no means completely identical) personnel to that of Jupp Heynckes' Bayern Munich. By way of illustration,
"We have number 10s, we don't have what I call a second midfield player, who is strong enough, powerful enough, but has creativity and scores goals, Lampard, Scholes, Gerrrard - the second player who sometimes scores more than the number 10 but defends like a number six. They're difficult to find. These three unbelievable players represent that." - Jose Mourinho when describing Pogba. In this way, there are parallels between Pogba and what would've been inspected from Schweinsteiger in his prime years. Fellaini is comfortably the more physical, and combative option than Carrick , Schneiderlin, and Herrera respectively. Javi Martinez, like Fellaini was unequivocally the most physical midfield option, he too is insurmountable in the air, and like Fellaini, Martinez was predominantly utilized in a different role under his previous manager. Martinez was mostly used as a CB by Biesla in the 11/12 season even though he's shown he's more than capable of playing as that midfield destroy, as was evident for Spain when they won the Euro U21 Championship. Likewise with Fellaini, he's played more advanced roles at United, under both Moyes and LVG, whether that's a box to box role, a number ten, or even in the striker position. Even though, Fellaini himself believes he's most effective as the holding midfielder. Furthermore, we have Rooney ahead of Fellaini and Pogba, and as Jose hinted, he'll be judged on his goal contributions and not dropping deep and pinging passes and what not. As you know, Jose said
"maybe he's not a striker any more. Maybe he is not a No 9 anymore but he will never, with me, be a No.6. He will never be 50 metres from the goal. For me he will be a No 9 or a No 10 or a nine-and-a-half, but with me he will never be a No 6 or even a No 8." He's essentially has the role of a shadow striker, like Jari Litmanen had for Ajax in the past under LVG. His job is to be e a goal threat threat alongside Zlatan. Similarly, Muller's incredible movement meant he had the role of being a no.10 with the job to be a goal threat, rather than a traditional play maker. A direct, goal scoring wide player like Martial, and then a play maker on the opposite side in Mkhitaryan, as was Ribery for Bayern Munich.
Whilst acknowledging it could be conjecture, but the skeptical side in me, believes me that Mata has only been playing as a result of mitigating factors with 1. Lingard getting injured in the Community Shield tie against Leicester, and even more so, considering in preseason Mata was seemingly competing with Rooney, as Mkhitaryan was the one competing with Lingard. 2. Jose tends to have relatively quick players positioned on the right, with the most recent examples being Willian, Cuadrado, Salah and Di Maria. 3. Public scrutiny due to his history with Mata. 4. I'm confident Jose knows that Zlatan thrives with pace around him, and he certainly had that with Di Maria, Lucas Moura, and Matudi making runs from the left channel, but even Cavani who constantly makes runs in behind the defence.
I'd like to see this sooner than later, even though my preferred system is a 4-3-3 with the point downward. In any case:
Zlatan
Martial(
Robben) Rashford (
Muller)Mkhitaryan (
Ribery)
.