One glance at the team sheet an hour before kick-off wasn’t enough. A star-studded front four was set to line up in front of a midfield two of unmatched muscularity and guile. The back four – cobbled together, perhaps – was still the best Jose Mourinho could manage on short notice.
A second glance was needed to confirm that it was, in fact true: the Manchester United manager had taken his side to an away fixture against a top six rival and lined up in about the most attacking manner that he possibly could.
Even some of the early questions upon the arrival of Alexis Sanchez were answered: no, Jesse Lingard wasn’t dumped out of the team, and yes, there was still room for an Anthony Martial or, theoretically, Marcus Rashford in the same starting XI. It was a refreshing feeling.
But within just seconds of the kick-off, we saw exactly why such questions arose in the first place.
Mourinho’s lineup looked like something from the worst excesses of the Manuel Pellegrini era at Manchester City: a 4-2-4 replete with attacking talent, so much so that even one of the midfielders was given a free role, his game more predisposed to attacking than defending anyway.
That’s why, on Thursday morning, the defence will take all the flack. In its loose marking, its hideous own goal, and in its generalised, unwarranted mayhem, Mourinho’s defence looked very much like it was put out into the world by a sworn enemy of the Mourinho way. And yet, despite clear failings, it wasn’t so much United’s defence as it was his attack that let him down.
Nominally, that is, as United didn’t do all that much attacking anyway. Not really. They managed less possession, fewer shots on goal than their opponents (almost four time fewer), and indeed Alexis Sanchez – the beacon of hope proclaiming a fresh start for the Mourinho era – touched the ball just twice in Tottenham’s area on a shy and retiring return to north London.
Again, though, that’s the simple reading. Alexis and co weren’t to blame because they didn’t attack enough, but rather because they couldn’t find the balance they needed to gain any semblance of control over the game. That’s what denied United the chance to either attack or defend.
Overawed not by occasion, the opposition or indeed the mythical location, United’s players were perhaps simply stupefied by their manager’s uncharacteristically liberal approach to attacking. Or at least the number of attack-minded players on the pitch.
Mourinho has proven so far this season, on numerous occasions, that he has intended to suck the life out of top six games. This time he fielded a group of players who were almost as shocked as the rest of us, simply unready for the cold plunge into unchartered waters and left in tatters just seconds after the first whistle.
By all accounts this was a tactical blunder, or at least a strange call that was undone as early as it’s possible to be undone, but that shouldn’t be where we leave it. Indeed, this isn’t a time to slate Jose Mourinho, Instead, it’s time to praise him.
Before this game, we knew that the Manchester United manager had a choice to make. Before Wednesday night, his last two games against top six rivals had ended in defeat against Manchester City and Chelsea, but since losing the derby at Old Trafford in December, United had not faced any of the league’s top sides: that is, since the title race had all but ended, the shackles had theoretically come off.
That’s the United Mourinho attempted to portray to the world at Wembley. This was supposed to be a new side; the winter had ended and the manager’s message to his players was to find their inner child again Free to play the fun, attacking football they’d always wanted, morale should have been soaring ahead of the return of the Champions League, when United’s season would truly be reborn in search for silverware.
It’s hard to criticise that sentiment. Yes, they were outplayed, yes their bizarrely ineffective two-man midfield was too undisciplined to deal with what Tottenham threw at it, and yes Mourinho was perhaps naive in his choice of line-up. But the mitigating factor here is an early goal so poor that it can only be explained by rawness, and a second just before the half-hour mark so bizarre that it would knock the stuffing out of any side.
Mourinho’s gamble didn’t pay off, and we should be sad about that. Because from here on in, are we going to see a fun-loving United take to the pitch in an attempt frolic in glee again? Or are we going to see a swift return to chains for some of the league’s most exciting attacking players because of a manager’s fear of further reprisal?
United stepped out of their comfort zone and were slapped down instantly. Maybe the real tragedy is that if they’d gone half an hour without conceding at all, we might have witnessed the rebirth of Mourinho’s United tenure. Instead, we might have seen its regression back into the depths.