Jose Mourinho needs to rethink his approach against top 6 rivals

The visiting fans at Old Trafford rejoiced by mocking Jose Mourinho with a ‘Park the bus" song and the Old Trafford faithful urged their team to show more intent by chanting 'attack attack attack'.

These two contrasting situations summed up the Manchester derby that finished 2-1 in favour of a dominant Manchester City and may have ended the title race even though the league is yet to reach the halfway stage.

That Mourinho instructed his assistant manager, Rui Faria to not celebrate after the equalizer from Marcus Rashford clearly showed that even he knew it was undeserved after City had enjoyed 75% possession.

He had chosen an attacking line-up for the match which raised eyebrows but it was clear from the first few minutes that his team would sit deep and allow City have as much of the ball as they wanted.

Mourinho has adopted a very cautious approach against top 6 rivals. It is all about respecting the opponent and looking to capitalize on their errors. By following this approach, his team somehow managed to get a brilliant result against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium last week.

Today he set up the team to replicate the same at Old Trafford against a very fluid Manchester City side.

Park the bus Man Utd pic.twitter.com/nOzZDDycyY

— Bad Day at Blackrock (@BD_at_Blackrock) December 10, 2017

United managed to do that in the first half when Rashford pounced on an error from Nicolas Otamendi and Fabian Delph to equalize but ultimately this match was won by a City side which showed far more intent.

That both City goals came from set pieces and errors is somewhat ironic given that these were the situations that United was supposed to take advantage of.

There is a recurring problem with this approach as it focuses on capitalizing on opponents' errors while delivering flawless defensive performances.

Earlier in the season, it was Chelsea which delivered the flawless performance and capitalized on the mistakes made by United.

Against Liverpool at Anfield, they managed to deliver a perfect defensive performance but could not press Jurgen Klopp's team into committing an error.

Marcus Rashford celebrates his equalizer for the Red Devils

Although against Tottenham Hotspurs and Arsenal, his team managed to force errors, it would be impossible to sustain this tactic for long periods of the season.

One can understand that the absence of Paul Pogba contributed to United's stunted attacking link-up play and rightly so, but the lack of intent from team can’t be justified as they did nothing positive for 90 minutes.

Although Mourinho has succeeded in the past by using this approach, he is now facing a different challenge. He is trying to enforce this approach in every game against top 6 rivals which seems to be a risky approach to take.

This not only forces his players to play defensively in these matches but it also takes away the margin for error in games against the other teams as United now have to beat all the smaller teams given that they may get little in terms of points in the Top 6 games.

Mourinho needs to reflect on whether he really wants his team to continue this negative style given how Manchester City are producing free-flowing irrespective of the opposition.

This negative approach is not helping him win fans over and the United faithful will ultimately want more ambition from their team.

Right now, it seems to be a matter of time before the accusations of negativity that ended his Chelsea and Real Madrid tenures begin to surface.