Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has a reputation for being an ultra-defensive minded tactician. The phrase “park the bus” has often been thrown around when describing Mourinho during big games in recent years. Because the Portugese is constantly compared to Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola, the narrative keeps persisting- Mourinho as the defensive guy, Guardiola the attacking minded.
Both United midfielder Ander Herrera and club legend Eric Cantona brought up this dichotomy this week, taking very different views on the topic.
After the 1-0 home win over Brighton & Hove Albion yesterday, Mourinho told his postgame media conference that he loaded up the attack too much. He said that those who might criticize him for playing too many attacking players will be right to do so.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if today some of the pundits say we play with too many attackers. I wouldn’t be surprised, but if they say that, I think they were right. Sometimes you play with too many attacking players and you lose control of the game,” Mourinho admitted in the Old Trafford media conference room.
“We had a few problems defensively because Matic and Pogba, they were a bit isolated in the centre of the park.”
Mourinho then went on to say that his side was not good when it came to creating scoring opportunities.
“If you compensate that with more creation, that’s good, that’s a good risk. Against Newcastle, it was good because we were not very solid defensively but we were really strong in creation. Today our creation was poor.”
“The three players that played with Lukaku, they didn’t get the ball, nor successful on the one against one. Marcus didn’t have a happy match at all. So we didn’t have creation.”
The win kept United perfect at home this season at the Theatre of Dreams, and extended the undefeated run at Old Trafford to 39. It also moved them to five points behind Manchester City for the top of the table, temporarily. City are currently losing 1-0 to Huddersfield at halftime.
Getting back to what Mourinho had to say about playing with too many forwards, it will be interesting to see what people have to say about this, i.e. how it plays into the narrative that he’s too defensive minded.
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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