Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has promised that his side will “attack” during the second half of the season. Or at least once his side gets through the next pair of games, and has 10 days off to rest, recover and replenish depth.
Mourinho has a reputation of being a very defensive-minded manager, and his name has become synonymous with “parking the bus.” He succeeded Louis van Gaal, who was consistently criticized by many for playing a defensive, low-scoring, uninteresting brand of football.
Traditionally, people have associated United with exciting, high-scoring, swashbuckling football, not the pragmatic. Under Sir Alex Ferguson, there was often a very compelling attack to watch, and that was the brand.
For this week, United must deal with a slew of injuries, especially so up front. Both Romelu Lukaku and Zlatan Ibrahimovic are out of action this week.
“We have lots of problems,” Mourinho said ahead of the New Year’s Day clash at Everton.
“We lost Lukaku, we lost Ibrahimovic for a month. To lose him for a month means he stops his run to the recovery. He has been running for many months. In the period where what he needs is to play and have minutes, we lose him for a month. We lose Lukaku, I don’t know for how long. I don’t remember the last time Fellaini played; was a long time ago. I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.”
Mourinho, who went into halftime at Goodison Park in a goalless draw, maintains his team must hold the line this week versus the Toffees and then again versus Derby County in the FA Cup on Friday.
Then brings his New Year’s resolution, to play more attacking football, on January 15 versus Stoke City.
“We have difficulty now to rotate players. Now we have to cope with Everton and Derby. After that we have an open space of 10 days before Stoke,” Mourinho continued. “Hopefully in this period we can rest, we can work, we can recover some players to attack the second part of the season.”
Here’s what Mourinho went with in attack today- Jesse Lingard on the left wing, Anthony Martial as a center forward and Juan Mata on the right wing.
Here's how #MUFC line up for today's @PremierLeague encounter… pic.twitter.com/JsKu6TNq6f
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) January 1, 2018
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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