Old Trafford: The Red Devils' Instinct

(Baonghean.vn) - Mourinho's Man Utd players don't play better, their technical stats are all poor.Tottenham but they were the winners. Simply because the person in charge is Mourinho with the nickname "the special one".

Coach Mourinho is under a lot of pressure after failing to win two recent matches in the Premier League. Especially the 1-2 loss to newcomer Huddersfield has made fans and experts doubt the true strength of the Red Devils.

Before the match, MU fans shouted for Mourinho to put Martial on the field from the start with Marcus Rashford, Romelu Lukaku playing with a 3-striker formation. In the end, Mourinho listened, but only half of the advice from the "online coaches" when using a 3-4-1-2 formation to welcome Tottenham, but leaving Martial on the bench.

Unpredictable changes

With a tight schedule, and having to face tough opponents in October with a constant number of injuries, Mourinho returned to his original form of lurking play. MU may not play too beautifully and impressively, the Portuguese coach only asked not to lose.

At Old Trafford, they have had an unbeaten year, including this round 10 match, they have gone 20 hours without conceding a goal (not counting set pieces).

Coach Mourinho: “Calm down, don’t get too excited. Relax!”: Photo: Internet

Lukaku had gone four consecutive matches without scoring before the match against Tottenham, but still came on and became the one to create Martial's goal in a deadlocked match thanks to his ability to dominate. Meanwhile, despite his stable form, the French star is now just a "strategic reserve card".

According to statistics, Martial has scored 6 goals and 6 assists in 604 minutes of play this season. Of these, 4 goals were scored by the French striker after coming off the bench.

Explaining how he uses Martial, he said: “He plays in the same position as Marcus [Rashford], but is more rhythmic than Marcus when he drops back to operate between the opponent's attack and defense to coordinate the ball, rather than simply focusing on exploiting the attacking space.”

The strategist commented on the goal in the 81st minute: “I instructed him to play like that to free Lukaku from three very good central defenders, and the last 60 or 70 minutes were a stormy time for both Lukaku and Rashford.

Viewers felt like coach Mourinho knew in advance when a goal would come and decided to bring Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial from the bench to replace Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Marcus Rashford, switching to a 3-4-3. Just 11 minutes later, everything happened exactly as he predicted and this was not the first time.

The charismatic coach has always had a rather strange view, playing against Tottenham but he is already thinking about the match against Benfica next Tuesday night in the Champions League. MU is only one win away from a ticket to the knockout round of the Champions League so can rest Lukaku, but against Chelsea, the Belgian striker's position is as solid as a brick.

Silent reply

Coach Pochettino fielded an attacking 3-5-2 formation and was determined to get 3 points away from home. It was a bit surprising that Coach Pochettino did not immediately use Fernando Llorente but chose “Korean Ronaldo” Son Heung-Min to play as a center forward and play right behind Korean striker Dele Alli.

The absence of Harry Kane due to a hamstring injury has reduced the visitors' style of play and their speed of attack has also noticeably decreased. This is the second consecutive defeat for Pochettino's team after they lost 2-3 to West Ham in the fourth round of the League Cup in midweek.

Anthony Martial was the best player of the match: Photo: Internet

Mourinho advocated playing low, lulling the opponent to sleep and in reality MU only controlled 45% of possession, shot 11 times on goal, 3 on target, lower than Pochettino's students with 13 and 4. In fact, in the 77th minute MU almost conceded a goal when Alli escaped to face goalkeeper David de Gea and failed to finish from close range from Eriksen's great pass.

After his favorite player scored, Coach Mourinho did not shout with joy as usual, instead he made a silent gesture towards the camera.

At the post-match press conference, the Portuguese coach also explained his special celebration: "Calm down, don't get too excited. Relax! I don't understand the reaction of some people when they question whether my team is the Red Devils they know." Very Mourinho!

The criticism was somewhat put aside after the Red Devils won convincingly against Tottenham at Old Trafford. However, the gap of 5 points less than the neighbor Man City is worth mentioning, what people expect from Coach Mourinho.

AT