Manchester United Fan View: Three things Jose Mourinho must do

Manchester United’s 2017-18 season actually came to an end in many of the fans’ eyes after they exited the Champions League two months ago. On top of that, things have gone from bad to worse as the Red Devils have witnessed Manchester City lift the Premier League title, as well as seeing long-term rivals Liverpool qualify for the Champions League final a few days ago.

Manager Jose Mourinho has a lot of decisions to make, as a lot of supporters and the club’s board will be having second thoughts on whether the 55-year-old Portuguese is the right man for the job or not.

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Here are three things that Jose Mourinho has to do if he wants to be successful at Old Trafford…

Time to have a proper plan for away games

There a lot of mixed opinions on Mourinho. He is seen as a manager who has helped Manchester United to pick up vital victories in the big games, yet his side has struggled to dominate fixtures away from home against so-called smaller teams encamped in the bottom half of the league. The Red Devils have lost five league games away from Old Trafford, with three of them coming to the likes of Brighton & Hove Albion, Huddersfield Town and Newcastle United.

It leaves the impression that the coach either does not rely on the weekly scouting reports of the opposition or he does not ask for them at all, because he sets his team up to nullify the home side and rely on the attackers to come up with the goods on the counter attack. For this reason, the side have scored the second least goals away from home (30 goals in 18 games) compared to others in the top-six.

Stop relying on individual brilliance

It’s no secret that the squad has a number of deadwood players and Mourinho is in need of a transfer window or two to clear them all out. However, it should not stop him from improving these players and making the most out of the current crop by producing a consistent system from defence to attack. Since no style has been implemented, the team have had to rely on the likes of Anthony Martial, David De Gea and Romelu Lukaku.

Similar to the previous managerial eras under both David Moyes and Louis Van Gaal, United are once again in the same situation with another manager, who regularly remains in a defensive mindset and wants his players to play safe in possession instead of playing to the squad’s strengths. The team has shown that they lack cohesion, given that the key attacking individuals cannot always produce match-winning moments on a weekly basis and nor can it be guaranteed that they will lead the side to a convincing victory.

Take responsibility for the side’s results

One of the downfalls to having Jose Mourinho as your manager is that he’ll never accept his errors or mistakes that led his side to a defeat. He will invariably hit out at many of the United players in front of the media, and then decide to throw them under the bus to make it look like he did nothing wrong at all. It’s time for this issue to come to an end. Both the manager and the players have to learn from the fact that the club cannot move forward if they do not take responsibility in learning from their mistakes.

There’s not a lot that can be said in front of Mourinho if you’re a United player, as it will result in the individual being sold within the next transfer window or that he will not play for the side for a number of weeks or months. That is a problem that many football experts and pundits had saw in the manager during his second spell at Chelsea and his time at Real Madrid. On the other hand, if the coach does not decide to change his ways, he will lose the Manchester United dressing room like he has done so at a few club over the last five to 10 years.