A comparative analysis of Jose Mourinho's and Alex Ferguson's work at Manchester United and possible solutions

#3 Finding and developing genuine goal-scorers

Anthony Martial

Any great football team should have at least 2 players who consistently score more than 25 goals in a season. Mourinho has been relatively more successful in this area as he signed a 35-year-old Ibrahimovic with significantly good results in the 2016-17 season.

Ibrahimovic scored more than 25 goals in his solitary season with United and was one of the major reasons behind their trophy wins. Lukaku was signed last season and he too contributed with a decent tally of goals. However, the likes of Rashford, Lingaard and Martial have not been able to score nearly as many goals as they would have liked to.

Ferguson had some great goal-scorers in his team throughout his tenure. The likes of Dwight Yorke, Andy Cole, Eric Cantona, Rooney, Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Ronaldo scored heaps of goals for United.

Ferguson honed and encouraged Ronaldo to become a fearsome goal scorer. He also had impact-subs like Teddy Sheringham and Ole-Gunnar Solsjkaer who scored some very crucial goals for United. Ferguson’s United were very direct and had great providers of crosses in the shape of Beckham, Evra, Neville and Scholes.

Probable solution for Mourinho:

He should encourage the likes of Martial and Lingaard to be more direct and have more attempts at goal. Martial especially is a very skilful player but wastes too much time on the ball at times. He has scored 36 goals in 137 matches for United and would definitely like to improve his scoring rate.

This is not acceptable in a fast-paced league like EPL. Sanchez could also be a very good goal-scoring option as he has consistently scored more than 20 goals in a season for his previous club Arsenal.

The big and strong Lukaku is a prolific scorer but he could also be used to head the ball down to other forwards inside the opposition penalty box. United’s fullbacks should also provide more incisive crosses to their forwards. Bernard Mendy has been doing this superbly for Manchester City this season.