Jose Mourinho has promised to travel back to Manchester on a supporters’ coach when — not if — United have won a trophy. The team will go by coach or train; the manager will sit with the fans whose support he’s valued in these past few difficult months.
Mourinho knows that his side are unlikely to win the Premier League title this season — it’s an opinion he has held since the start of the season — but United continue to improve and recorded a fourth straight league win against Sunderland on Boxing Day.
United remain sixth but they continue to bridge a gap to fourth, considered insurmountable only three weeks ago and confidence that it can be done increases with every victory. It’s now 11 games and two months since Mourinho’s men were beaten and the buzz is firmly back among fans.
Nobody is getting too carried away but there’s increasing belief that the man in charge is the real deal. Mourinho thinks he took over a team that had been on the decline since long before they last won the title in 2013 and which faces unprecedented competition from its current domestic rivals.
But optimism is growing ahead of upcoming fixtures that, like the mild Mancunian winter, could be harsher. United’s next games are at home to a Middlesbrough side managed by Mourinho’s former Real Madrid assistant Aitor Karanka, followed by a trip to West Ham and home cup ties against Reading and Hull. Then Liverpool come to Old Trafford on Jan. 15.
Mourinho thinks three years is a sensible timeframe to bring United back to the top, with two or three transfer windows to get things closer to the way he wants. In the meantime, his current squad is playing well and scoring goals.
On Boxing Day, a side at the wrong end of the table once again proved obstinate opponents at Old Trafford but, unlike when United came up against Burnley, West Ham and Stoke earlier in the season, United capitalised on the many chances they created.
Each of their three goals was splendid and each featured Zlatan Ibrahimovic during wondrous passages of play. The 35-year-old forward, who has scored 11 times in his past 10 games in all competitions, has 50 goals in 2016 for Paris Saint-Germain and United. Only Lionel Messi, with one more, has managed a greater tally in Europe’s top five leagues.
But Ibrahimovic doesn’t just score; he also assists, starts attacks and leads United’s forward line with authority. Though pace has never been his strong point, he was still faster than the two Sunderland central defenders charged with closing him down on Monday. The man is an audacious menace, a red devil whose contributions bring a smile to his manager’s face when he’s asked to talk about him.
Ibrahimovic was frustrated with the way his teammates used him at the start of the season but matters are now much improved and his link-ups are paying off with players such as Paul Pogba, the 89 million midfielder, who is improving by the month and driving his team forward. His three assists this season have all been converted by Ibrahimovic, though Pogba needs to work on his own finishing.
The ball with which Ibrahimovic set up Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s outrageous second-half scissor kick against Sunderland was almost as breathtaking as the goal itself, while his pass for Daley Blind’s first goal of the season showed the vision he has in the tightest spaces.
There was confidence all over the field for United. At the back, Phil Jones and Marcos Rojo again excelled in central defence, an outcome that appeared most unlikely given their fortunes at the start of the season. United still want to sign a central defender and have been speaking to Benfica about 22-year-old Swede Victor Lindelof.
Portugal’s biggest club are using their favoured negotiator Jorge Mendes, who is also Mourinho’s agent, and have excelled in getting the best price for their emerging talents. Benfica’s business model is built around providing the final step to the biggest clubs and their chairman knows that what he calls “the Benfica stamp” is trusted around the world.
The clamour for new signings has diminished somewhat, given the way United are playing, though it’s understandable that Morgan Schneiderlin and Memphis Depay want to play regular first-team football. They’ve had chances to impress, as had Rojo before his current rich vein of form. Football is cyclical and cynical.
So the Reds go marching on, on, on and Mourinho’s demand for “points, points, points” keeps being realised. These are good times, though a couple of defeats could knock some of the glitter off United’s Christmas revival.
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