Things are getting from bad to worse for Jose Mourinho. One of the most hated managers in modern football era for his negative tactics, the Portuguese’ much-hyped appointment as Manchester United manager hasn’t gone according to plan so far.
Last weekend’s huge and humiliating loss at the hands of his former club Chelsea has further deteriorated the situation. Guess what? They will now be facing Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in the midweek. A loss here could give a serious blow to Mourinho’s position as United’s manager as the fans are slowly starting to become impatient despite it being fairly early in the season.
Considering City’s slip up lately, it can be safely said that neither half of Manchester fan base have been convinced about their start, although City lead the Premier league table momentarily. They are on level points with Arsenal and Liverpool, who are breathing down their neck. Neither of the sides will be expected to go loose in a derby even though it is an attractive prospect of winning silverware.
Defence
After a calamitous defensive display at Stamford Bridge, where Mourinho’s back line conceded 4 goals with the first one as early as in the 30th second of the match, Mourinho is expected to have strong words with his players after labeling it as ‘incredible’ in the post-match conference.
With one of his main defender Eric Bailly suffering a knee injury and Mourinho stating it as pretty bad, the Argentine Marcos Rojo is expected to replace him. With Phil Jones out injured, Mourinho will be expected to stick with Chris Smalling despite a poor performance against Chelsea. Apart from that, Mourinho is likely to bring in Matteo Darmian after his encouraging performance against Fenerbahce. Daley Blind will start on the left and ahead of Luke Shaw.
Despite letting in 4 goals, David De Gea is unarguably the best United have in that position and he will start as the goalie.
Midfield
Now, unlike in the defence, Mourinho has many options in the midfield and he is more than likely to reshuffle them against Manchester City who have been scoring a lot with their free-flowing football.
Marouane Fellaini is expected to drop to the bench with Mourinho starting with the more technical Juan Mata. We expect Anthony Martial to start in place of Marcus Rashford. Jesse Lingard is also expected to start on the right flank after his flurry of attacks against Chelsea. Paul Pogba is expected to have a more defensive role given City’s attacking third players. Herrera should take his place.
Attack
With Wayne Rooney out, Mourinho has to stick to Zlatan Ibrahimović despite the Swede’s blunt performance in the past few matches. He has been isolated up front thanks to Jose’s negative tactics and cannot be blamed really for his toothless display as he’s had literally zilch service. Mata’s reintroduction should help the team with some creativity and with City’s defence fragile as ever, they sure do have a chance.
