Mourinho's team selections

[luke511]

Anyone else feel like this is the main reason why we're playing so badly at the moment? It has never felt like we've played our strongest available XI consistently under Mourinho.

There's always some sort of message he's trying to dictate to a dropped player or some bizarre exclusion that stops us playing our strongest side. For the last few games I've looked at the team selection pre match and just knew the game was going to be a pile of shite.

Personally can't wait to have a manager that knows how to pick a well balanced team again.

 

[Sb_16]

Always knew he was the wrong choice from a philosophy POV, but is he now completely out of depth from modern football or is he consciously trying to destroy us?

 

[Devils11]

It was not the team selection, it the style of play. Even the old Utd in the 80s used to attack, playing the tradition of gung-ho football. They didn't win anything much but we like what we see.
Look at Utd now ,10 men behind balls , concede the majority of possession, no overlapping runs , no off the ball no running into space. Just pass the ball to the left flank and hope Martial/ whoever come out with something special.
Utd will still win matches here and there but they are so boring to watch and Mourinho doesn't care . He believe his counter attack , anti-possession tactics should wins matches , and if it doesn't, it is the players lacking desire and intensity !

 

[RedCurry]

The subtle difference from Fergie is that he was always happy to punish his favorites in the team by dropping them, bypassing the bench and giving some youth players a shot after a loss. That kept the youth players hungry and senior players on their toes. Even when Jose shakes the starting lineup, it’s the same soulless type players.

 

[Jazz]

He plays his favourites always so of course his team selections are shite. We are suffering because of his insecurity.

The games with Sanchez up top we looked like we could build something. All of a sudden he throws Lukaku back in and stops any progress. Even Stevie Wonder could see this would feck up our fragile attacking play once more, but no, he has to have his arse lickers on the pitch.

He did the same thing when we got Sanchez as well. Every time we look like we're making some small progress, he then goes and messes it up.

The club is paying him £15M a year for managing and he's playing favourites. I wish we could sue him for gross incompetence.

 

[r0663664]

Jose doesn't care about the club. Even if we miss top 4, it doesn't impact him. Same goes for the players. We need managers and players who live and die by the badge. I would take Cantona or Keane.

 

[kouroux]

I don't get it why, out of the blue, Lukaku starts again. We've played some ok football and even scored some goals recently and not one of them involved him. What does he see in him ?
I am wondering what it would take for Matic to be subbed during games, never mind being dropped from the starting lineup

 

[R'hllor]

Its like watching the same movie, due trying to follow all Serbian players in PL, i was watching tones of games of other teams, the similarity is uncanny with his time in Chelsea. Its kinda mental. When i was fearing for AP while Matic was injured, some had a go at me, telling me how i dont understand loyalty.

Yesterday someone was defending his Darmian pick, saying how other one was injured and probably not fully ready, funny how same logic isnt applied when Matic returned vs Spurs or Afro vs City.

Lets be honest, before sacked in Chelsea, certain players probably were backstabbing the shit out of him, not to mention Ivanovic (his boot was filled with blood 6 months ago) case. How hard you have to tunnel vision to trust more those who clearly downed tools then giving a chance someone from the bench or God forbid someone from their more then successful academy.

 

[el3mel]

His persistance on his favorites is fecking up the team selection. I honestly don't get why he has enough courage to talk about players competing on positions or their maturity when he is giving a guaranteed position for 90 minutes for the worst players in the squad just because they are his favorites. Terrible way of management. It's LVG and Rooney fecking all over again.

 

[yfoFC]

Right now, I am just genuinely confused and can't understand this man

He seemed like he liked Sanchez and stuck with him for 10 months in the wrong position, and now that that same Sanchez has looked better up top he goes and reinstates a player that didn't earn his way back into the team (lukaku)

Is he so blind that he can't see he is hurting himself and the team with his own bizarre choices?

What did lukaku do to earn that 90mins?

Doesn't he see it will hurt the other players when incompetence keeps being rewarded? (Matic and lukaku)

How can he have the gall to question players' hearts and desire when they can see he isn't being fair?

I honestly feel like tearing my hair out just thinking about how this man is hurting the team with his own hands with some elementary mistakes even we the fans can spot... I honestly think I hate this man

 

[doriandun]

I don't get it why, out of the blue, Lukaku starts again. We've played some ok football and even scored some goals recently and not one of them involved him. What does he see in him ?
I am wondering what it would take for Matic to be subbed during games, never mind being dropped from the starting lineup

Lukaku, has just come back from an injury, the idea was to give him minutes, before the busy December, Sanchez has also just come back from injury, and was not back in training till Friday, as Chile played Wednesday, Matic is playing as we do not have another defensive midfielder in the team.

Mourinho can not play 4-2-3-1 as the team has no deep lying playmaker, playing 4-3-3 is also an issue as there are no right forwards or wingers in the team, and shunting Mata, Linguard and Rashford there is counter productive, the team does not have a quality right back, so the opposition know that they have a free reign when they attack our right hand side, and just stiffle our left.

The team only has one recognised left back, who is ok going forward, but can not defend, couple that with Pogba not really interested in defending or should i say protecting his left back, you have slight issues, just look at the amount of goals this season alone we have conceded on that side of the pitch.



The thing that alot of people have over look is why was Mckenna and Carrick brought into the first team setup, could they be plants by Woodward, to undermine the manager.

Even if Poch is the next manager, he will have to sort out the right hand side, will probably bring in a central defender, and Pogba will be out the door, as Pogba is no Erikssen or Dele Ali, as Poch likes to play 4-2-3-1 or 3-5-2.

 

[12OunceEpilogue]

The very process of trying to sum up our current problems demonstrates how numerous and multi-faceted they are. Every single person who is in a position to influence our play is seemingly culpable; so Jose, the players and the board should all take blame. The trouble with apportioning the blame properly with our limited knowledge of events is that every one seems to be letting down everyone else; Woodward is in the wrong role, Jose is shackled by the board to an extent, players are shackled by Jose and left exposed by subpar performances next to them.

Jose's team selections are puzzling to say the least at times, and he should carry the can for those, but what he's been left to work with is hardly ideal either. For me the domino effect of shit on the pitch starts with Matic, our make-do-and-mend fullbacks and not having a natural right-sided attacker at the football club. Matic has been run into the floor with a tough season in 17/18, then a WC and surgery in the summer and another tough season in which he's inexplicably asked to play 90 minutes come hell or high water. Him ever-present in dire form exposes our CBs, who while by no means being a great pairing can't be expected to thrive when they have opposition teams playing balls and making runs in and around them for the majority of most games. This in turn exposes De Gea who is not in his stunning form of last year but again shouldn't be expected to bail us out with fantastic saves three and four times in every game.

Shaw did well earlier in the season and has struggled since, but the real issue lies with Young being a first choice fullback and fecking Darmian somehow being our first choice replacement in 2018. Defensively our FBs are exposed by good, not to mention great, players time and again, while offering very little going forward. They, Matic and Jose's preference for a box-to-box workhorse-type as the third mid (nothing wrong with that in theory, but is it Herrera? Fellaini? Certainly not our big summer signing who can't be sure what he has to do to get a chance) mean Pogba is the only player behind the front three who has the tools and the license to create anything. There are issues there of course, and when he has off days he is infuriating, but being pretty much the only player out of the deepest seven outfielders who can move the ball forward with purpose would weigh heavily on any player. Martial also has his off days but he has the tools to be our best performer and match winner. He'd be happier and more consistent if he'd been left to make his position his own but instead was messed about to crowbar Alexis in last year. Like many fans I was excited by his signing but bringing in another left-sided player while Mata and Lingard fill in on the right is pisspoor recruitment. Lukaku is in crisis; whatever you think of his suitability as the leading striker at Manchester United he hasn't shown even a fraction of what he can do this year. Same goes for Rashford, whose development has stalled badly as he fails to grasp any of his chances.

We look a mess from top to bottom at the moment, but so far as this thread is concerned I feel sure the issues on the pitch would be hugely helped by giving Jose a confident, mobile DM, positionally-aware modern fullbacks and a natural right-sided attacker. As it is we have too many square pegs in key areas who cannot reach the levels we require themselves and worse still hamper others from doing so.

 

[kouroux]

Lukaku, has just come back from an injury, the idea was to give him minutes, before the busy December, Sanchez has also just come back from injury, and was not back in training till Friday, as Chile played Wednesday, Matic is playing as we do not have another defensive midfielder in the team.

Mourinho can not play 4-2-3-1 as the team has no deep lying playmaker, playing 4-3-3 is also an issue as there are no right forwards or wingers in the team, and shunting Mata, Linguard and Rashford there is counter productive, the team does not have a quality right back, so the opposition know that they have a free reign when they attack our right hand side, and just stiffle our left.

The team only has one recognised left back, who is ok going forward, but can not defend, couple that with Pogba not really interested in defending or should i say protecting his left back, you have slight issues, just look at the amount of goals this season alone we have conceded on that side of the pitch.



The thing that alot of people have over look is why was Mckenna and Carrick brought into the first team setup, could they be plants by Woodward, to undermine the manager.

Even if Poch is the next manager, he will have to sort out the right hand side, will probably bring in a central defender, and Pogba will be out the door, as Pogba is no Erikssen or Dele Ali, as Poch likes to play 4-2-3-1 or 3-5-2.

I'm sorry but that's just nonsense.
Lukaku being out of the team coinciding with the team scoring goals without him should have been obvious enough that he doesn't deserve to start and that he needs to earn his playing time. Matic is our only DM, let me laugh That makes no sense whatsoever as he is atrocious and Fellaini or Herrera could and will do a better job at protecting our backline than him. If something doesn't work (Matic starting all the time), trying it over and over again is pointless. He is obsessed with both players and they are draggin us down.

 

[AltiUn]

Echoing other sentiments in here but really his favouritism will be his downfall. It's like he learned nothing pre-City. We weren't perfect, we were still leaky but we were scoring goals, we looked like we wanted to win and most importantly we were creating chances. The only thing Lukaku did to earn his place back was a glowing interview, we were playing much better (although not saying much) with either Rashford or Sanchez up front, for those few games I thought we'd finally found a good use for Sanchez who looked suited to the position.

Giving players a guaranteed starting spot makes them complacent, look at Matic, he doesn't give a toss. I've not seen a player so lazily drift about and half-arse tackles in years, I'm not buying that it's entirely due to some physical decline, he really doesn't look interested and it's probably because he has no fear of being dropped. It must be demoralising for the rest of the squad that you can come in and have a good game but that'll all be forgotten because Lukaku's said all the right things in an interview. I've moaned about Young a fair bit this season but at least he cares, he actually looks like he gives a toss.

For a long time Mourinho has valued attitude over ability, and to some extent I agree with that, the squad needs a healthy mix but he persisted with players like Matic, Lukaku, Fellaini, Young and Valencia well past their use. We signed players like Fred and he uses the excuse that they need time to adapt to the league but it's pretty hard to adapt when you don't play.

We don't have the best squad in the league by a long stretch but there's no way we can't improve on what we're currently seeing, dropping Lukaku and Matic would be a good start but I just don't think he understands/won't balance the team for whatever reason. There are the players available in our squad to put together a balanced and cohesive team but for whatever reason he doesn't seem interested, whether it's personal or stubbornness I don't know but something has to change quickly.

 

[Red_Orchestra]

Why doesn't Mourinho keep Sanchez up top and move Lukaku to the right wing position, he always drifts right anyway. I would like to see a front three lineup like this
(Martial-Sanchez-Lukaku).

 

[red4ever 79]

For me the main issue I have is the persisting with players who are not performing. Even as kid you were always taught you play well you keep your place, play bad and someone else will come in. The fact that Lukaku and Matic seem to be exempt from this I think is causing us serious harm. Lukaku was finally dropped for what one and a half games. How did he warrant coming back in the side and displacing Sanchez. Matic has been dreadful this season. Herrera could do a much better job for us in that position.

 

[doriandun]

I'm sorry but that's just nonsense.
Lukaku being out of the team coinciding with the team scoring goals without him should have been obvious enough that he doesn't deserve to start and that he needs to earn his playing time. Matic is our only DM, let me laugh That makes no sense whatsoever as he is atrocious and Fellaini or Herrera could and will do a better job at protecting our backline than him. If something doesn't work (Matic starting all the time), trying it over and over again is pointless. He is obsessed with both players and they are draggin us down.

Wasn't Lukaku in the team last season when the team was scoring,as the post above alluded to, Matic is in need of a rest, after last season, the world cup and coming back from injury, Fellani does not have the legs to play the role consistently, he a centre mid as is Herrera, who could be used ot press the oppostion.

If chances are created Lukaku will score goals, as he has done thru out his career, he is the icing on the cake, not the foundation in which, provides the platform for the attackers to shine.

 

[kouroux]

Wasn't Lukaku in the team last season when the team was scoring,as the post above alluded to, Matic is in need of a rest, after last season, the world cup and coming back from injury, Fellani does not have the legs to play the role consistently, he a centre mid as is Herrera, who could be used ot press the oppostion.

If chances are created Lukaku will score goals, as he has done thru out his career, he is the icing on the cake, not the foundation in which, provides the platform for the attackers to shine.

Forget last season, each one is different. Lukaku scoring goals last season means nothing. Besides it's not like he broke a scoring record or something, it was very underwhelming considering the amount of chances he regularly fecked up.
Does Matic have more legs than Fellaini or Herrera ? The answer is no. Does Matic ponder on the ball much more than them instead of releasing it quicker ? The answer is yes. He's become a parody of what a real DM should do.
Lukaku will not score goals, he's fecked up so many easy ones already in nearly 4 months of football. What has he got to do to convince he's not good enough ? Miss wide open goals ? Miss the target from inside the box ? Miss easy header in front of the goal ? He's already done all of that and more.

For me the main issue I have is the persisting with players who are not performing. Even as kid you were always taught you play well you keep your place, play bad and someone else will come in. The fact that Lukaku and Matic seem to be exempt from this I think is causing us serious harm. Lukaku was finally dropped for what one and a half games. How did he warrant coming back in the side and displacing Sanchez. Matic has been dreadful this season. Herrera could do a much better job for us in that position.

This. Rewarding mediocrity with playing time is crazy. Matic has no worries at all that he could be benched

 

[Kag]

We play so badly because whatever we do (or don’t do, clearly) on the training pitch doesn’t translate to a weekend. The team selections merely compound this.

 

[Posh Red]

Wasn't Lukaku in the team last season when the team was scoring,as the post above alluded to, Matic is in need of a rest, after last season, the world cup and coming back from injury, Fellani does not have the legs to play the role consistently, he a centre mid as is Herrera, who could be used ot press the oppostion.

If chances are created Lukaku will score goals, as he has done thru out his career, he is the icing on the cake, not the foundation in which, provides the platform for the attackers to shine.

Lukaku has been consistently missing good changes all season. Also, did he not score less than twenty league goals last season? For someone that does not contribute positively in the build up, that is nowhere near good enough.

 

[kouroux]

Lukaku has been consistently missing good changes all season. Also, did he not score less than twenty league goals last season? For someone that does not contribute positively in the build up, that is nowhere near good enough.

His scoring record of last season isn't special at all.

 

[Josep Dowling]

Mourinho logic:

Sign expensive players. Leave on the bench whilst continually using the same shit players who have failed for this club season after season.

Fellaini should have his contact ripped up. Smalling and Young to.

Changing the manager would improve us but for us to get anywhere near winning the league we need to invest in the first 11, not the squad. By the time we do that though De Gea and Martial would have left and we will be back to square one.

Waste of time with this club now, there is some obvious changes that everyone outside the club can see and nothing changes. That’s down to the owners and Woodward.

 

[12OunceEpilogue]

Mourinho logic:

Sign expensive players. Leave on the bench whilst continually using the same shit players who have failed for this club season after season.

Fellaini should have his contact ripped up. Smalling and Young to.

Changing the manager would improve us but for us to get anywhere near winning the league we need to invest in the first 11, not the squad. By the time we do that though De Gea and Martial would have left and we will be back to square one.

Waste of time with this club now, there is some obvious changes that everyone outside the club can see and nothing changes. That’s down to the owners and Woodward.

On what grounds ? Unfortunately we have nothing better at the moment.

The only contract I'd rip up is Darmian's, it's an embarrassment he's starting for us in 2018. I'd also demand Matic takes six months off to get his body and head straight in the hope he'd come back able to move and to pass a ball less than 30 seconds after receiving it.

 

[Canagel]

It feels like sabotage or blind loyalty to me. Herrera , McTominay at CB is definitely sabotage. And the continued inclusions of Lukaku and Matic will be affecting player morale I have no doubt. It's not a level playing field and drags the whole performances down.

 

[Josep Dowling]

Echoing other sentiments in here but really his favouritism will be his downfall. It's like he learned nothing pre-City. We weren't perfect, we were still leaky but we were scoring goals, we looked like we wanted to win and most importantly we were creating chances. The only thing Lukaku did to earn his place back was a glowing interview, we were playing much better (although not saying much) with either Rashford or Sanchez up front, for those few games I thought we'd finally found a good use for Sanchez who looked suited to the position.

Giving players a guaranteed starting spot makes them complacent, look at Matic, he doesn't give a toss. I've not seen a player so lazily drift about and half-arse tackles in years, I'm not buying that it's entirely due to some physical decline, he really doesn't look interested and it's probably because he has no fear of being dropped. It must be demoralising for the rest of the squad that you can come in and have a good game but that'll all be forgotten because Lukaku's said all the right things in an interview. I've moaned about Young a fair bit this season but at least he cares, he actually looks like he gives a toss.

For a long time Mourinho has valued attitude over ability, and to some extent I agree with that, the squad needs a healthy mix but he persisted with players like Matic, Lukaku, Fellaini, Young and Valencia well past their use. We signed players like Fred and he uses the excuse that they need time to adapt to the league but it's pretty hard to adapt when you don't play.

We don't have the best squad in the league by a long stretch but there's no way we can't improve on what we're currently seeing, dropping Lukaku and Matic would be a good start but I just don't think he understands/won't balance the team for whatever reason. There are the players available in our squad to put together a balanced and cohesive team but for whatever reason he doesn't seem interested, whether it's personal or stubbornness I don't know but something has to change quickly.

He’s meant to be a world class manager but he’s never played a balanced team in 3 seasons.

He has never looked to sign a RW, our weakest position going forward. Any opposing manager knows all our attacks are from the left wing. If Mata plays RW he drifts into CM. Lukaku always drifts to the right because there is always space so when we do attack our target man isn’t in the box.

We had Martial and Rashford as left wingers, who are both strikers anyways, then sign’s Sanchez for the same position just so he could get one over Guardiola. Now we have a past it player on £500k a week on the bench.

Defensively Mourinho hasn’t bothered signing wingbacks. Even this summer we were never linked with one, it’s clear he was after a CB when we always have 5 in the squad, 2 of which he signed and both are crap.

If he can’t spot out clear weaknesses in our team there is no point having him as a manager. He’s past it, his style of football is dead at the elite level. The club should have done everything to get Guardiola or Klopp, their lack of planning has cost this club 10 years. We aren’t getting better anytime soon.

 

[Josep Dowling]

On what grounds ? Unfortunately we have nothing better at the moment.

The only contract I'd rip up is Darmian's, it's an embarrassment he's starting for us in 2018. I'd also demand Matic takes six months off to get his body and head straight in the hope he'd come back able to move and to pass a ball less than 30 seconds after receiving it.

Fellaini has been here for 5 years and he’s just a metaphor for the current state of the club. Slightly above average, lacks intensity, plays safe, always played out of position. Why is he starting as a CM? He can’t pass, he can’t tackle, he can’t run with the ball. The only thing he is good for is getting the ball out the air and holding the ball up, he was a number 10 before we signed, play him in that position or don’t sign him.

Apparently he works hard so his performance is accepted by certain fans even though he hasn’t got the talent to play for Manchester United.

Smalling is exactly the same, takes an age to pass the ball because he has to position his body before passing, plays safe, can’t run out from the back. He is a major reason why we can’t counter attack or move the ball forward quickly. Watch him in the next game. He gets the ball, 9/10 he plays a side ways pass to Shaw or Young. Even if he has 30 yards of space in front of him he never moves forward with the ball, he passes it.

Put it this way would either player get in any other top 6 club? Smalling doesn’t even get picked for England yet it good enough for this club? Fellaini is a substitute for Belgium. Says it all.

 

[Stubble]

Lukaku over Sanchez, Sanchez over Martial, Matic over Herrera. The obsession with Fellaini. Persisting with an average Lingard. Mourinho will only drop his favourites when injury strikes or the clammer grows just too loud. This is costing us again and again but he won't give up on trying to make the unworkable work. Fred, Herrera, Pereira etc do not get a look in just 'rinse and repeat' - its so damn frustrating.

 

[Schmiznurf]

His team selection is a fecking joke.

 

[Foxbatt]

His team selection and playing players in the wrong position is the main cause of the problems. Anyone should be better than Matic there. I keep saying even Jones will be better than him now to play in midfield. Playing Matic there is like playing without a defensive midfield player. We played with a back 3 and played better than this.
Sanchez up front was better than Lukaku yet he brings back Lukaku. Surely the Board should be able to see this too. It is time Woodward tell it to his face that his performance as a manager is not acceptable to the club the way things are going.
Play Martial and Sanchez/Rashford up front as a two strikers. Sanchez is going to come deeper anyway. Play Pogba as the attacking midfield player and Fred and Herrera in midfield with someone like Lindelof instead of Matic and Bailly and Smalling in defence and we may play much better.

 

[L1nk]

Team selections are a joke, leaves out players he's bought (trying to selfishly make a point?), we seemed to be playing better without Lukaku so of course he puts him straight back on the pitch today, Matic apparently can't stop being picked and he can't even be subbed despite being atrocious week in week out (Chelsea shafted us with this transfer) and the likes of Pereira still can't get in the squad.

 

[Yagami]

Let's give him some credit in that he's improving in this department. I mean, we're not playing McTominay as a CB anymore, right? That's some progress at least.

 

[12OunceEpilogue]

Fellaini has been here for 5 years and he’s just a metaphor for the current state of the club. Slightly above average, lacks intensity, plays safe, always played out of position. Why is he starting as a CM? He can’t pass, he can’t tackle, he can’t run with the ball. The only thing he is good for is getting the ball out the air and holding the ball up, he was a number 10 before we signed, play him in that position or don’t sign him.

Apparently he works hard so his performance is accepted by certain fans even though he hasn’t got the talent to play for Manchester United.

Smalling is exactly the same, takes an age to pass the ball because he has to position his body before passing, plays safe, can’t run out from the back. He is a major reason why we can’t counter attack or move the ball forward quickly. Watch him in the next game. He gets the ball, 9/10 he plays a side ways pass to Shaw or Young. Even if he has 30 yards of space in front of him he never moves forward with the ball, he passes it.

Put it this way would either player get in any other top 6 club? Smalling doesn’t even get picked for England yet it good enough for this club? Fellaini is a substitute for Belgium. Says it all.

I agree they have their limitations and that ideally they wouldn't be starting for us but my point is we are in no position to be ripping up the contracts of our most consistent defensive player and a solid, unremarkable midfielder. We should aspire to have better, more technically astute players than Smalling and Fellaini but that doesn't mean we should chuck them out of the door while they can still do a job for us. At the moment we're not in a position to let the perfect be the enemy of the mediocre, unfortunately.

 

[Andycoleno9]

He picks to much hard working players instead of talented. I don't think that any other manager would play with Matic, Lukaku and Lingard instead of Fred, Alexis or Rashford. Also Jose must stop rotating. Every game it is new game plan, new formation and new first 11.

 

[r0663664]

Let's stop talking about his team selection. Just look at our squad now. I think we have the worst squad in the top 6 teams. Our strikers are misfiring, our wingers all loves to left wing, no right winger for last 4-5 season, slow and static midfield, shaky CB and wing back who can't put in a decent cross. Only our goalkeepers deserve to wear this shirt. I seriously can't understand from Moyes to Van Gaal to Mourinho, none of these managers can address our problem. I am shock and speechless on how every manager cannot address our problem. Sad times to be United fans.

 

[Tom Van Persie]

Jose's team selection yesterday was dreadful. We were playing Palace at home and he still insisted on playing out of form Matic who offers very little going forward in midfield. We were coming off the back of a horrible defeat to City and an international break, playing a regulation candidate at home was a perfect opportunity to be more attacking and make a statement by putting a few goals past them. Fred was bought for £50M and it's taking him some time to get used to playing in the PL but he's not going to learn sitting on the bench in games like this. We should be using these games to ease Fred in same with Dalot.

 

[Foxbatt]

Jose's team selection yesterday was dreadful. We were playing Palace at home and he still insisted on playing out of form Matic who offers very little going forward in midfield. We were coming off the back of a horrible defeat to City and an international break, playing a regulation candidate at home was a perfect opportunity to be more attacking and make a statement by putting a few goals past them. Fred was bought for £50M and it's taking him some time to get used to playing in the PL but he's not going to learn sitting on the bench in games like this. We should be using these games to ease Fred in same with Dalot.

Out of form Matic who offers very little going forward? He does not offer anything in defence too and that is the bigger problem. He offers nothing in any sense.

 

[kouroux]

Out of form Matic who offers very little going forward? He does not offer anything in defence too and that is the bigger problem. He offers nothing in any sense.

A caf member told me Matic plays because he's our only DM..

 

[eire-red]

Our main problems are in defence and imbalance in attack, seems like the answer is pretty obvious to me. 5-3-2 seems like the best formation to get the best out of this team. Now i'm not advocating this as our new formation at all, but with 5-3-2 we still can have solidarity in midfield with a 3 of Pogba and whoever else isn't playing badly enough to be dropped. Pereira and Fred would be nice, but that's unlikely.

Now 5 at the back, the way I would like to see it is Dalot and Shaw on the flanks, I mean we may as well give Dalot a chance right? And with the extra defender he wouldn't have as much defensive responsibility and can get bedded into the team. As for the 3 in the centre, I really don't know anymore. I guess Smalling and Lindelof, and the other spot is up for grabs.

Up top, I would love to see Martial and Rashford, or Martial and Sanchez. Those 3 players are our only attackers who will run channels, stretch defences and can interlink as well. Martial is our best finisher, we need to get him in dangerous positions as much as possible.

At home against smaller teams that we should be dominating, can drop an extra midfielder and play a Mata or Lingard in the No. 10 to link midfield and attack. I mean we have no real natural wingers, Rashford and Martial can play LW, and Martial is very effective off the wing, but I see him as more of a LF in the long run, similar to Ronaldo in the last few years, prowling that channel between the touchline and the 18 yard box on the left, but with freedom to roam infield and outfield.

Perhaps i'm just talking nonsense, but what do you guys think? I feel like we have glaring weaknesses, but Mourinho persists in playing a formation that highlights them rather than nullifying our weaknesses.

 

[Tom Van Persie]

Out of form Matic who offers very little going forward? He does not offer anything in defence too and that is the bigger problem. He offers nothing in any sense.

Agreed.

 

[TwoSheds]

Wasn't Sanchez injured though?