Manchester United coach Jose Mourinho has blamed his team’s recent blushes on his defence line especially Luke Shaw, after losing for the third straight time in a week.
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United were not at the races for much of the afternoon as Mourinho, who has now tasted defeat in three successive games for the first time in over a decade and for the first time in a single season in England, opted to play a 4-3-3 formation with captain Wayne Rooney again uninspiring in a deeper midfield role.
Carragher said: “He can’t be criticised too heavily at this point – Christmas will be when we can fairly judge Pogba – and we cannot underestimate what a good signing he is for the Premier League as a whole; I was delighted he came here rather than going to Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich”.
Kolarov has the ball in a hard situation in the corner and my player, instead of going up and pressing, decides to give him space. But even at 25 metres, then you have to jump and go press.
‘It was not because of that that I was thinking that my team was ready, was the end product, was flawless, was unbeatable.
“I can split these defeats into three factors – one, the referee’s crucial mistakes are not in my control, there is nothing I can do about that”. It’s something that doesn’t become flawless in a couple of weeks.
‘If you analyse our three defeats in the last week, we were always the best team in the second half, ‘ he said.
“We need to get off to a quick start and hopefully get an early goal that would settle us”.
“I think you need someone who can stop the play – but he needs to be capable of controlling the game of football as well, playing forward, passing forward”. We have to improve, individually and collectively, that is my job.
Manchester United’s French midfielder Paul Pogba (C) talks with Manchester United’s English midfielder Jesse Lingard (centre L) and teammates as he attends a team training session.
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“Euro final, no pre-season, holidays, come back – it’s normal that in the first week he had the very good impact in the first game (in United’s 2-0 win over Southampton)”.
