#360view: Mourinho has his marquee names but is missing one

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  • Delight: Jose Mourinho.

    Jose Mourinho wasn’t excuse-making when he admitted on Friday that it will take some time before Manchester United start to play his brand of football and not that of predecessor and one-time mentor, Louis van Gaal.

    For sizeable amounts of time against Leicester, the Red Devils – of which seven of their starting line-up were in Van Gaal’s swansong XI for the FA Cup final – played the sort of stodgy, disjointed and ultimately bland football that frustrated fans so frequently last season.

    They do now have a goalscorer with considerable pedigree in Zlatan Ibrahimovic who, as he showed in the 83rd minute at Wembley, will help turn potential draws – 10 under Van Gaal last term – into victories, irrespective of how good or bad he’s been over the course of the 90 minutes.

    The obvious attribute that was missing from their performance, and for the last three years for that matter, post-Ferguson, is any kind of midfield dynamism. Coincidently enough, it’s the exact brand of football Paul Pogba has trademarked in Turin since his arrival from Old Trafford in 2012.

    Inadvertently, United’s performance only enhanced and justified their case for breaking the world transfer record for a former player who’s yet to be considered among the genuine elite of the game.

    Because if Mourinho and the club have genuine aspirations of winning the Premier League title this season – and, given his track record, they surely do – it will simply not be achieved with a central midfield trio of Marouane Fellaini, an ageing Michael Carrick and Wayne Rooney, who continues to play in reverse.

    Making snap judgements on the Community Shield in isolation can be a little hasty, but this pattern of play isn’t an emerging problem anymore, it’s clearly endemic.

    You’d expect Mourinho to beat it out of them eventually, but the easiest remedy is a change in personnel and it’s almost inconceivable to imagine United’s midfield come mid-September to be anything like what was on display on Sunday.

    Pogba will now be there, but the one component missing from a truly Mourinho-like team is the sort of player which has defined his legacy at Porto, both spells at Chelsea, Internazionale and Real Madrid: a pure holding midfielder.

    At Porto he had Costinha, known best for tapping in the winning goal at Old Trafford to knock United out en route to the 2004 Champions League title, but his goalscoring represented a miniscule part of his game. He was a vital component for Mourinho’s limited but incredibly well-drilled unit built on midfield domination.

    His first spell at Chelsea was constructed first on the brain of Claude Makelele – a welcome present left by Claudio Ranieri – and then Michael Essien, who admittedly Pogba is closer to in style, but was still a disciplined and dedicated defensive player.

    Esteban Cambiasso and Thiago Motta provided a devilishly difficult-to-break-down double pivot during Inter’s treble of 2010, while in Madrid, Xabi Alonso’s understated importance to the team was only truly realised when he left the Bernabeu for Bayern Munich.

    The Portuguese’s return to Stamford Bridge also saw Nemanja Matic re-signed from Benfica.

    All the above names are different athletically and aesthetically, but performed essentially the same role. Even with Pogba, he still doesn’t have that kind of player – although Carrick was maybe close; an authoritative figure, able to keep possession and dictate the tempo while maintaining a strict defensive shield in front of the back four.

    Maybe he believes he can convert Pogba into that man (although the Frenchman will note holding midfielders don’t tend to win Ballon d’Ors), but the likely reality is that he won’t be truly happy, nor free of Van Gaal’s United, until he finds him.

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