Manchester United Fan View: Weekly report of Jose Mourinho’s Red Devils

It’s been a week of one step forward and two steps back as Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United suffered an embarrassing defeat in the hands of Tottenham Hotspur during the week but got back to winning ways with a dominant victory over Huddersfield Town.

The Red Devils are still second, and are five points above third for the time being, with Chelsea facing Watford on Monday night. Despite the fact that the league title is more or less going to Manchester City, it would without a doubt, be a sign of huge progress for Mourinho and the club if they can finish in second position as well as challenge in the FA Cup and in the Champions League.

Here are the quick thoughts on the two fixtures that the Red Devils played this week…

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Tottenham taught Manchester United a lesson

From start ’til finish, United were chasing shadows. Once Christian Eriksen gave the home side the lead after 10 seconds, the visitors lost their heads and were making mistake after mistake, which allowed Spurs to pile on the pressure from all fronts. It was so bad that Jesse Lingard and Paul Pogba were brought off in the second half.

Part of the blame has to go to Mourinho, who continued to stick to his rigid 4-2-3-1 setup instead of playing the back-three or even going with a midfield trio.

Due to this mistake, the Spurs attackers were harassing Nemanja Matic and made sure they countered effectively from his errors. Not only that, but Pogba’s discipline defensively was not good enough which gave the manager no option but to hook him. In the end, United were lucky to have only conceded two goals throughout the game.

Dominant and much needed win over Huddersfield Town

After that poor showing, both the manager and players had to get back to winning ways.

Goals from Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez gave United the three points, which proved to be vital as both Liverpool and Spurs dropped two points on Sunday.

Mourinho made a clear point to the squad as he benched the likes of Anthony Martial, Ashley Young and Pogba following their abysmal displays during the week.

Many of the fans questioned this brutal decision, though in the end it proved to be the right choice.

Sanchez had a brilliant home debut and was justifiably recipient of the Man of the Match award.