Jose Mourinho Seeks More Manchester United Progress

Jose Mourinho will attempt to lead Manchester United to victory over a team from the top half of the Premier League when his side host Tottenham on Sunday.

The Portuguese goes into the game in optimistic mood. United are unbeaten in seven games and through to the last 32 of the Europa League, having won for the first time in eight European away games against Zorya Luhansk in freezing Odessa on Thursday night.

Nobody is getting carried away about Monday’s draw and the chance to meet the likes of Osmanlispor or APOEL, or trips back to Istanbul (Beskitas) or Ukraine (Shakhtar Donestk), but Mourinho feels that, little by little, United are improving.

It will take time, but he is prepared to put time into it. He thinks he is working harder than ever before and that there is still plenty to do. Mourinho is at his desk at 8 a.m. each morning and usually leaves the training ground at 6 p.m. on days when there are no games. United is his focus; especially as his family are 200 miles away in London.

Mourinho has received support from the club and he’ll get more while he shapes the team. The environment in which he’s working is vastly different to when he arrived at Chelsea 12 years ago, charged with breaking up the duopoly of United and Arsenal. Leicester won the league last season and can pay £25 million for players; Premier League teams are far better resourced.

United are currently sixth and that league position is frustrating, especially given the nine-point gap between them and the top four, but the team’s style of play is undeniably better than last season. It’s more exciting and more chances are being created but not enough goals are being scored, while leads in league games are being relinquished too often.

Cup competitions, on which United used to look down in their pomp, are now valued; even the Community Shield win against Leicester is cherished by Mourinho. United want to win the League Cup and field strong teams, whereas once it was used to field young or fringe players.

The Europa League, long mocked by United fans as being a competition for lesser sides like Liverpool on Thursday nights, has been taken equally seriously. It’s not about the money, but more to do with the prestige of trying to win trophies and of creating a team with a winning mentality.

And there is a desire to retain the FA Cup, that great competition in which United also fielded weaker sides when at the peak of their powers. Reading, managed by ex-Old Trafford defender Jaap Stam, will provide the third-round opposition in the first home fixture of 2017.

When the clubs met in the competition a decade ago, Reading drew at United before losing the replay after Sir Alex Ferguson’s scored three times in the opening six minutes. If Mourinho had his way there would be no such thing as cup replays and the biggest teams, those who play European football, would enter the EFL Cup at a later stage.

If United do as well as they hope to in the cup competitions this season, they could come close to playing a club record number of matches this season. The schedule is packed but, for the fans, two games every week is far more interesting than the 44-game season that was 2014-15.

Thursday’s game in Ukraine was the first of eight that will be played up to and including the Reading tie 31 days later. Mourinho, like his predecessor Louis van Gaal, accepts the British tradition of the festive football calendar but would wish for some respite in the weeks that follow the holiday period.

At least he has a large squad and fierce competition for places. Half a dozen players want to play the No. 10 role alone, although the manager prefers a system without one, with Paul Pogba given licence to roam.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan, one of the players who can play as a 10, scored his first United goal against Zorya and is starting to look like the asset fans hoped he would be upon arriving from Borussia Dortmund. He accepts that he needed to toughen up physically and train with more intensity before becoming a regular and, rather than gripe to his favoured media contacts, he did that and he’s getting his rewards. Mkhitaryan has the potential to be a great entertainer.

Mourinho also has a better injury situation than that which afflicted Van Gaal last season. Thursday saw Eric Bailly return after six weeks out and complete 90 minutes. That he performed so well confirmed the esteem in which he’s been held since his debut in the Community Shield. The Ivory Coast defender will be missed when he plays in the African Nations Cup next month.

Phil Jones is also back and silencing his doubters alongside the improving Marcos Rojo. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is scoring, Spanish trio Ander Herrera, Juan Mata and David De Gea are integral, while Michael Carrick is influential once again after barely featuring at the start of the season.

Sergio Romero is an able goalkeeping deputy and, given his background playing in the crazy Argentinian stadia, not one to be fazed when a firework is thrown into his area, as it was on Thursday. Antonio Valencia is one of United’s players of the year so far, while Pogba is slowly, sometimes unpredictably, moving up the gears.

Set against such damning statistics as two league wins since August, the list of positives is considerable and there’s a feeling at the club that United could put a serious, Mourinho-like, unbeaten run together, but feelings count for nothing.

With each stumble, Mourinho learns a little more as he puts together the pieces of his jigsaw. He also knows of the high expectations the surround such an expensively-assembled squad and that they’re expected to beat big sides at home. United came close against Arsenal recently, denied only by a late equaliser. They need to go one step further against Tottenham.