Jose Mourinho's Defence Could Cost Manchester United a Place in the Top 4
In mid-November, Manchester United were forced to admit they would be penalised by Adidas if they fail to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
There is a clause in their 10-year contract with the sportswear company that if they do not earn a place in Europe’s premier club competition for two consecutive seasons, their annual payment will be cut by as much as 30 per cent, as reported by the BBC.
The bottom line is, United could miss out on an estimated £21 million next season.
In 2014, when United negotiated their contract with Adidas, they would have been more than content to include this clause, for the notion they would not play in the Champions League for two consecutive seasons seemed preposterous.
After all, between 1996 and 2013, United had played in the Champions League for 18 consecutive seasons, reaching the final four times and winning it twice.
While United had failed to qualify for the 2014-15 season, this was believed to be an aberration, explained away by the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson.
Although they made the group stages of the 2015-16 Champions League, they finished fifth in Premier League last season and missed out on Europe's top club competition once again, and so another failure this season will prove to be an even more expensive mistake.
By only collecting a point against Arsenal on Saturday, United find themselves six points outside the top four, with a vastly inferior goal difference, and there is now a real risk they could stay there for a second consecutive season.
The greatest obstacle to United hauling themselves back in to the Champions League places is the crisis currently engulfing their defence.
On Saturday, they wilted as soon as Arsenal belatedly applied some pressure, when Olivier Giroud rose unchallenged to grasp a late equaliser.
Over the course of the last 14 years, the United manager Jose Mourinho has built his reputation on a succession of impenetrable defences at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid, but so far he has failed to replicate that at Old Trafford.
The Portuguese has not looked comfortable, or even terribly happy at the start of what he hopes will be a successful reign at Old Trafford.
Without his usual defensive solidity, Mourinho has been stripped bare.
After 12 Premier League games, United have conceded 14 goals, six more than at this stage last season, and even more than Middlesbrough, who languish as far down as 15th in the table.
This does not look like a Mourinho side yet.
It has become increasingly clear Mourinho has no real grasp about who should even be in his strongest back four.
So far he has experimented with nine different players in six different combinations at the back, and he is no nearer to knowing.
It is my contention only Antonio Valencia would reluctantly earn a place in Mourinho’s strongest defence from the players who started at the back in United’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal on Saturday.
Across the whole of United’s back four, there is a sense of unease, a sense of getting by, and overall, a sense of not being quite good enough.
Before he sustained his arm injury, Valencia was Mourinho’s first-choice right-back, starting the first nine Premier League games of the season.
The Ecuadorian performed ably; he is strong, and quick, but he is not a natural defender and manifestly remains a converted winger.
There is an air of the makeshift about him.
Matteo Darmian is a more orthodox right-back, but he has been shunted to the left as he seeks to rediscover the form he showed in his first two months at the club after his £13 million arrival from Torino in 2015.
A longer-term candidate for the role, possibly not yet ready, is the muscular and commanding potential of 18-year-old Timothy Fosu-Mensah.
On the other side of the defence, at the start of the season, Luke Shaw returned from 11 months out with injury to begin what was assumed would be a decade-long run as United’s left-back. It would last for just five games.
Mourinho clearly has a strained relationship with Shaw after publicly criticising him following United’s 3-1 defeat to Watford in September, before alluding to his failure to be available for United’s 3-1 win at Swansea City earlier this month.
The power and pace Shaw showed for United at the start of last season, and for Southampton during the 2013-14 campaign to earn his £27 million move, would surely win over Mourinho, but so far this season, that has not been seen.
The one beacon of hope in the United defence has been Eric Bailly.
An unheralded signing this summer, he has quickly won over United fans with his presence, maturity and brute strength in the centre of defence.
Before his untimely injury against Chelsea at the end of October, Bailly had been a revelation, but it had also become obvious he still needed a partner who could offer more calmness and experience than Chris Smalling or Daley Blind.
Smalling is still waiting to make that jump between youthful promise and accomplished defender, and his personal implosion in the 4-0 defeat to Chelsea in October means he remains stranded on the wrong side of this debate.
In the aftermath of United's win at Swansea, Mourinho’s willingness to publicly criticise absent players, which included Smalling, also does not bode well for him.
Blind is still an indispensable member of the squad, adept at centre-back or left-back, or even a cameo in midfield, but he does not look like a Mourinho defensive player and has already been dropped twice this season.
At the moment, solely due to injuries, Phil Jones and Marcos Rojo are forging a partnership at the centre of the United defence, but they look more like squatters, with both unlikely to stay there for too much longer.
It is a curiosity that a manager who has had such dominant and combative defenders as Sergio Ramos, Pepe, John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho and Jorge Costa at the heart of his defences would now be content to stumble along with his current collection of players.
This does not look like the usual solid and assured Mourinho defence, but rather a chaotic work in progress, where players are still auditioning for their roles.
There needs to be a radical improvement, or further forays into the transfer market in January, if United are to gatecrash the top four and return to the Champions League next season.
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