5 mistakes made by Jose Mourinho this season

#1 Persisting with the 2 man midfield

That's just how it should be!

It simply was not working, was it? Are there more painful sights in football right now than seeing Paul Pogba play sweeper alongside Nemanja Matic? When Manchester United were constantly playing in the 4-2-3-1 setup, neither of their best players - Alexis Sanchez or Paul Pogba were effective.

More often than not, whenever Pogba pranced forward, he'd end up meddling with Alexis Sanchez's space and this often proved to be counter-productive for Manchester United as they struggled against Newcastle United of all teams.

When they reverted to using Ander Herrera and Nemanja Matic in defensive midfield, thereby affording more freedom to Paul Pogba, Manchester United beat Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur in the span of 2 months. 2 of those games were played away from home!

Jose persisted with a system that was not getting the best out of his players for far too long and maybe, just maybe, if he had decided to afford the freedom of Old Trafford to Manchester United to Paul Pogba and trust the absolute belligerence of Ander Herrera, Manchester City might not have won the Premier League just yet.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Aakanksh Sanketh