When Will Mourinho Pick His Strongest XI?
Well, here we are nearing the end of November, and Chelsea are top of the table, and don’t look like wobbling soon.
They had a slow start, but have hit a run of form that have seen them climb over the last seven weeks. Diego Costa is scoring a staggering amount of goals, the defence is three men wide but ten men strong, and their formation is set. So is Tottenham’s, Arsenal’s, and largely Manchester City’s and Liverpool’s, and they’re all ahead of Manchester United.
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United are close to their worst start to a Premier League campaign EVER, and it’s little wonder, considering Jose Mourinho still doesn’t even seem to know what his strongest XI is.
The midfield rotates, the attack force is in constant flux, and given the relative lack of injuries United have been lucky to accrue this season, there’s very little reasoning behind it. It looks like Pogba has found it impossible to maintain any sort of run of form with the shape of the field continually shifting.
Mourinho’s had the stones to drop Rooney, a move many of us weren’t expecting for some while, but has rotated Mata and Pogba behind the striker, and Fellaini, Herrera, Carrick, and Pogba further back.
The team has shown it works best when Carrick dictates the play and the pace of a game, and with a player like Herrera willing to run for 90 minutes every game, Carrick is able to do just that. Pogba is then able to play further forward, opening up the entire pitch, and linking together with Zlatan in a partnership that just hasn’t been given enough chance to truly flourish.
Mata has been in stunning form at points this season, and plays well cutting in from the right, complementing Pogba’s tendency to drift into the wider positions. Hopefully he’s completely buried the hatchet with Mourinho, because he needs to start every game.
Rashford’s having a good season over on the left, but I’d rather see him continue to develop and see his pace in the closing segments of the game than risk him getting injured so young or simply burning out. His keen eye for a goal and game changing nature seems to work its magic most deadly when introduced to the mix against a tired team. I’d rather see him take more games on the bench and give Martial a chance to get into a run of form and gel with the rest of the midfield.
It would be more helpful still if the defence was a little more consistent also. Granted, Shaw came back from injury part way into the season, and Bailly went out to one. Still, the center back pairing is changing almost weekly, and the left back is no more constant. Darmian, Marcos Rojo, and Blind have all played there in addition to Shaw.
Mourinho himself has said there’s no issue with Shaw, so why’s he not being played? He’s better in the position in his sleep than the people Mourinho’s been favouring over him, and he’d give a far stronger threat going forward too.
And that’s without mentioning the mysteriously missing Mkhitaryan, the seemingly shelved Schniederlin, and I don’t have an alliteration for the third but Smalling’s been oddly absent considering his notable season last year. The team’s pool of usable talent runs extremely deep in certain areas, with players like Jesse Lingard, Memphis Depay and Ashley Young waiting in the wings (to play on the wings), and Rooney isn’t exactly useless.
The squad is lucky to have key pieces and guaranteed starters in De Gea and Ibrahomovic, but the two of them can’t fire this team to the heights of the top of the table without a little more coherence between them.
I have the humility to know that I may be very wrong with the team I believe to be the strongest in the side, but I don’t particularly care which players are on the pitch. I certainly won’t if they’re winning, or at least playing a consistently effective, threatening style of football. I care that Mourinho figures out his strongest XI sharpish, because the title is already slipping from United’s reach, and nobody above them is going to slow down.