United supporters may not be accustomed to watching their team take such a defensive approach, with only Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool having had more shots than them this season and Sir Alex Ferguson having previously employed an attacking brand of football for almost three decades.
However, when the situation arose, Ferguson was happy to play with the aim of avoiding defeat instead of going all out for the win. He certainly did that towards the end of the 2011/12 season, when a draw at the Etihad would have more or less sealed the title for his team. Ferguson duly played with a five-man midfield and Wayne Rooney as the lone striker; United lost and, a few weeks later, City were crowned champions.
If only Ferguson could have overseen the performance that Mourinho did last Thursday. It is likely that, with half a team unavailable for selection and the rest exhausted by a busy schedule, United’s former manager would have also resorted to defensive tactics at the Etihad.
It was therefore surprising to see Mourinho receive so much flak for the display, while Pep Guardiola largely escaped without criticism. City have played fewer games than United this season, have fewer injuries and were playing at home, yet David de Gea had next to nothing to do. He made a decent save from a Sergio Aguero attempt but still managed to catch it with both hands. United had Daley Blind standing in at centre-half, yet Sergio Aguero was limited to shots from outside the box.
Mourinho’s men, quite simply, could not afford to lose that evening. The gap between them and City, particularly with tough away games against Arsenal and Spurs on the horizon, would probably be insurmountable had they done so. If the point United secured that night helps them finish in the top four, then it was all worth it.
However, instead of taking advantage of the points dropped by teams above them recently, United drew 1-1 with Swansea at the weekend. The Welsh side will probably be playing in the Championship next season, yet United could not beat them at Old Trafford.
Seven teams have a better home record than the Red Devils this season, with Mourinho’s side having drawn more games than they have won. Hull (17th), West Ham (15th), Burnley (14th), Stoke (12th) and Bournemouth (10th) are among the sides to have left Old Trafford with a point.
Now that United are enduring an injury crisis, with Eric Bailly the last of the available central defenders to hobble off the pitch on Sunday, they do not have any leeway. They simply cannot afford to drop any more points before the end of the season and their squad is threadbare. All those needless points dropped at home are beginning to cost them.
Paul Pogba has been injured and Marouane Fellaini is suspended, which has forced Ander Herrera and Michael Carrick to play virtually every minute because of a lack of other available options. Mourinho, then, must be left wondering why he allowed both Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger to leave halfway through the campaign.
The former had played just 11 minutes of Premier League football before joining Everton in January, as well as four appearances in cup competitions. The latter only made four appearances in all competitions, with Mourinho forcing Schweinsteiger to train with the reserves when he first arrived last summer, before realising the error of his ways and bringing the German back into the squad in November.
Schweinsteiger even scored in an FA Cup outing and Mourinho was forced to concede that he made a mistake in not giving the midfielder a chance. When the former Bayern Munich man asked to leave for Chicago Fire, Mourinho felt as though he could not deny him the transfer and agreed to sanction the departure.
One player who managed to convince Mourinho that he deserved to be retained was Rooney. The manager has handled the situation with the captain perfectly, giving him just enough rope to hang himself with at the start of the season, when he played him week in, week out before dropping him after a run of poor performances.
When Rooney broke the club’s goalscoring record in January, it was the ideal time for the player to pack his bags. The Chinese Super League came calling and his agent Paul Stretford flew out to scope out the deal, but the captain opted to stay put.
Against Swansea on Sunday, Rooney resembled a player featuring in his testimonial, chugging around the pitch a mile off the pace and even being given a token penalty to score, before being taken off with 10 minutes left to play because he was knackered.
In the last three months, he has played 300 minutes of football in all competitions, yet at the weekend he looked as though he had been slogging as hard as Bailly, who has featured for 780 minutes in the past month alone.
With difficult fixtures ahead, including a two-legged Europa League semi-final against Celta Vigo and two trips to north London, things are not looking great for United. What works in their favour is the fact that they have tended to pick up decent results against the stronger teams: Mourinho’s charges have already beaten Chelsea and Spurs this term, as well as knocking City out of the League Cup on the way to the final that they won, and remaining unbeaten against Liverpool and Arsenal.
Yet the overriding feeling seems to be that United have blown it. The combination of dropped points, injured players and exhaustion suggests that Mourinho may well have no choice but to win the Europa League if he wants to manage in Europe’s elite competition next season. Even if United beat Celta Vigo, you have to wonder about the state of the 11 players the manager will be able to field in the final.
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