Man Utd have ‘big decision’ to make over Mourinho – Ferdinand fears worst season ever

Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand believes that the club “have big decisions” to make over the future of manager Jose Mourinho.

The Red Devils have made their worst start to a Premier League season ever, and the slowest in England’s top flight since 1989-90, with a 3-1 defeat to West Ham on Saturday the latest blow to the club’s credibility.

It was a result that came in the aftermath of a week that saw United dumped out of the Carabao Cup by Championship side Derby, while the Portuguese’s spat with Paul Pogba continued with the World Cup winner being publicly stripped of the vice captaincy.

“There will be conversations at the top level about the future of the manager and the squad,” Ferdinand told BT Sport.

“The basics are not being done and something has to be said.

“You can’t let a situation like this continue throughout the season – wars in the press, leaks, players on one side of the dressing room, Mourinho and his staff on the other. If that continues this will be one of the worst seasons in the club’s history.”

The manager, meanwhile, believes his squad need to become mentally tougher. 

“I have no complaints with the players’ attitude, I can have complaints with some quality and the mental approach in certain duals,” he said.

Jose Mourinho Manchester United West Ham 290918

“Where you could see for example, [Robert] Snodgrass coming to the pitch with an incredible attitude that he wants to eat the ball and eat everyone around him.

“You need that humility. You have always to try. That’s my nature as a football professional. There are certain qualities that you have or you don’t have.

“I think a team that comes with that mental fragility, after the bad result [against Derby] and to come here and in five minutes to be 1-0 down, is not good.

“No VAR and obviously a linesman [makes a] mistake and a goal. Then in the first half we had a good reaction but an own goal makes it 2-0.

“An own goal when we know that [Andriy] Yarmolenko is very left footed. We know we have to cover that side. We are not aggressive enough to stop that shot and we are losing 2-0.”

United have only 10 points on the board through their opening seven Premier League fixtures this season, having lost as many matches as they have won. They currently lie 10th in the standings and face a midweek clash against Valencia in the Champions League as they seek to rebuild their confidence.

Prior to the season’s second international break, they host Newcastle at Old Trafford next Saturday, then return to action against Chelsea and Juventus in what promises to be a very testing October.

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Hazard genius may not be enough if Chelsea’s strikers don’t start scoring

A flick and a turn, then a run and a finish.

Eden Hazard’s lightning movement and sixth goal of the Premier League season in Saturday’s pulsating 1-1 draw with Liverpool put Chelsea in an unexpected position under new coach Mauricio Sarri: the Blues are title contenders.

Hazard’s sensational form has propelled him to at the top of the goalscoring charts, with Sarri helping him hone a trait that many thought the Belgian would never possess: a real ruthlessness in front of goal.

Chelsea’s main worry ahead of the season was that they lacked the finishing ability to win the title, but their most valuable player is providing them with that platform to compete with Liverpool and Manchester City for top spot.

However, it still may not be enough.

Sarri is pushing Hazard to chase 40 goals but Mohamed Salah’s current slump after last year’s record-breaking heroics is a reminder that one should never get carried away by hot streaks. A run of goals is never guaranteed unless your name is Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi and the goalscoring burden on Hazard at Chelsea is huge.

Indeed, as it stands, Hazard’s tally of seven goals in all competitions means that he has scored more than every other Blues forward combined this season.

After Chelsea were pegged back in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Liverpool by a late wonder-goal from Reds reserve striker Daniel Sturridge, it was put to Sarri that his side is now overly reliant on Hazard for goals.

Eden Hazard Chelsea PS

“Maybe,” he acknowledged, “But I think at the end of the season we can have four, five players with over 10 goals. So it’s not only Hazard.

“Of course Hazard is the first, but I think Pedro, Willian, [Alvaro] Morata, will be able to score more than 10 goals in a season. Pedro is on three goals [at the moment].”

What makes Hazard’s Premier League-leading tally of six goals all the more impressive is the fact that they have come from just eight shots on target. Contrast his remarkable rate of efficiency with that of Morata, who missed seven chances in a single game against PAOK last week.

There are some great performers in Chelsea blue but they lack the ability to not only score chances, but create them too, at least not with the regularity of their attacking counterparts at Liverpool and Man City.

Towards the end of the second half of the game against the Reds at Stamford Bridge, a close up was shown of Hazard’s knees after he was brought down by Sadio Mane. Liverpool had targeted Hazard as many do, due to his clearly exceptional talent, and the tackles took their toll as Hazard got to his feet bloodied.

Hazard’s individual class is deciding games and Chelsea’s rivals know it. Shut him down and you shut Chelsea down.

He is Chelsea’s only hope of a goal right now, their only hope of sustaining a title tilt.

Still, the week’s double header against Liverpool was always going to be a stern test of Sarri’s revolutionised team and they rose to that challenge.

Jurgen Klopp is just one of many in the football world to be stunned at how quickly the Blues have adapted to a total overhaul in playing style and his side lost their 100 per cent win record at Stamford Bridge, which was the last to stand in all four English professional divisions.

However, they escaped the stadium undefeated with the very best that Chelsea could throw at them. Klopp remains likelier to win the big prize than Sarri, who admits himself that his side are still a step behind Liverpool and City, even if they are closing the gap quicker than he anticipated.

Of course, Hazard has been key in that regard. He could well carry Chelsea for the entire season. He is that good. 

However, he needs more support if Sarri is to emulate Antonio Conte’s Premier League triumph in his first season at Stamford Bridge, in 2016-17.

They were a side that were unfancied too, but they didn’t have the quality of rivals that Sarri is now tackling in Liverpool and City.

With Hazard in this form, of course, anything is possible. He has developed a killer instinct in front of goal. But he needs the likes of Morata to rediscover theirs if Chelsea are to maintain their title challenge.

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Valverde better hope resting Messi was worth it

During the first half of Tottenham’s 2-0 win at Huddersfield on Saturday, Jan Vertonghen crumpled to the turf gripping the back of his leg.

He stood up and hobbled before Eric Dier urged him to go to ground and await treatment. Vertonghen – along with Belgium team-mate Mousa Dembele – then failed to appear for the second half.

That is the last thing Spurs coach Mauricio Pochettino needs ahead of Wednesday night’s Champions League game against Barcelona under the Wembley lights.

He will already be without Dele Alli – injured during international duty and re-injured before this game – while Christian Eriksen missed out in West Yorkshire with an abdominal injury of his own.

Pochettino likes to work with a relatively tight squad but these knocks leave him facing depleted numbers before Barca come to town.

The Spurs coach had set his team up against Huddersfield in a 5-2-3 formation, with the pace of Son Heung-min and Lucas Moura allowing Spurs to counter clear when possession broke down. That’s how it might be in London midweek when Barca have plenty of the ball.

It’s not like Spurs to be beaten in the possession stakes but Huddersfield had more of it here. Granted, the ball spent as much time in the sky as it did on the grass but Spurs struggled for a foothold.

The 5-2-3 might have been a specially selected strategy with the intensity of Huddersfield in mind, but the personnel within it were the best Pochettino could muster in the circumstances. Harry Kane scored twice to carry home the three points. Pochettino knows he can’t do without the England captain. Without him, Spurs don’t look the same. 

Harry Kane Heung-Min Son Danny Rose Tottenham 2018-19

The only player he rested here was Erik Lamela, who didn’t get off the bench. Pochettino – after a fruitless summer transfer window – simply doesn’t have much room to manoeuvre when it comes to rotation.

That is in contrast to his Barcelona counterpart, Ernesto Valverde, who is now under severe pressure. The succour of last season’s domestic double has already worn off. Barca have watched Real Madrid cart off the last three Champions League titles and much of the early season message to the media has been about the focus on continental success.

Domestic glory is almost as taken for granted as Lionel Messi’s brilliance and the focus now is on getting it right in Europe. But their standards are slipping badly. Spurs will be taking on an underperforming and out-of-sorts Barcelona; if it wasn’t for those new injuries then they might see themselves as genuine favourites for Wednesday.

Unlike Kane, Messi and Sergio Busquets were left out of the side to face Athletic Bilbao – and Barca were punished. Valverde is a coach in a bind. His first season at the club was extraordinary and he should have been among the nominees for FIFA’s Coach of the Year award last week.

They talk in American sports of the ‘sophomore curse’; the inability to follow a stunning debut season with anything like the same consistency. That would appear to be where Barca are at with their coach.

He will need to rotate his squad for a long season ahead but he is utterly dependent on his favoured XI and Messi in particular. 

It’s been a bad, bad week for Barca. They are three games without a win in La Liga after two draws and a defeat. They are faltering – collectively and individually – and the only aspect keeping them on the requisite level is Messi.

In that regard, it was a strange decision from Valverde to leave him out. Barca needed to bounce back after their midweek loss to Leganes; surely the most productive thing to do would be to play Messi, win convincingly and ensure confidence is high going into Wednesday. Instead, Valverde has invited more criticism and more pressure.

The prospect of a game without him in the line-up is enough to make Barca blood run cold, let alone that Messi-less future which one day will stretch out before them.

Lionel Messi Barcelona 2018-19

He assisted Munir for the equaliser against Athletic and could conceivably have had a hat-trick for himself.

But Barcelona might feel slightly off the hook as a result of those Spurs injuries by the time they turn their focus to European matters.

Dier switched to centre-back after the Vertonghen injury but his distribution remains amiss and he showed a tendency to concede fouls at the edge of the box. A free-kick taker the quality of Messi will do more damage than Chris Lowe did here.

Victor Wanyama and Harry Winks took up the central midfield position in the second half, but in truth no Spurs combination got to grips with the game in there. Huddersfield were too aggressive, too snappy, for the pace of football they wanted to play.

A peak Barca can do similar, even if that prospect seems remote given their troubles at the moment.

It’s set to be a fascinating game at Wembley and could rival Liverpool’s tussle with Paris Saint-Germain for tie of the group stage. There are flaws on both sides and yet both are possessed of enough attacking talent to keep the other worried. Messi could well be the deciding factor but his form in England is ordinary by his own high standards and he’s without a goal away from Camp Nou for the last five months.

Spurs went toe-to-toe with defending Champions League holders Real Madrid this time last season and dismissed them convincingly. It was a win in Europe that gave the players belief in their coach and his methods. It was also a brutal wake-up call for Zinedine Zidane and his team who did not get their act together until well after Christmas.

Valverde will get nothing like that kind of time, despite his trophy haul last season. He will be hoping Messi’s rest was worth it.

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Ramos bemoans Real’s missed chance to pounce on Barcelona slip-up

Sergio Ramos lamented Real Madrid’s draw against city rivals Atletico Madrid as the European champions missed the opportunity to capitalise on Barcelona dropping points.

After crashing to a 3-0 loss at Sevilla last time out, Real dropped points in La Liga for the second successive match following Saturday’s goalless draw with Atletico at the Santiago Bernabeu.

Real were less than convincing on home soil, relying on the brilliance of goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois to secure a draw in the Spanish capital.

La Liga holders Barca had earlier drawn 1-1 at home to Athletic Bilbao and Madrid captain Ramos told reporters post-game: “We knew the importance of these three points to take advantage of Barcelona slipping up. The draw feels disappointing after the great job we’ve done.

“In the first half Atletico pushed higher, but in the second we controlled the game and just missed the finishing touch that we’ve had in other games. We have to look forward now.

“You always have to have the utmost respect for the opponent because in these games mistakes are decisive, so it’s better to be careful and not pay the price.

“The team dug in well, controlled the game and dominated, but we’ve not been successful in front of goal and we’ve dropped points.”

Dani Ceballos impressed for Real after replacing injured team-mate Gareth Bale at half-time.

Gareth Bale Real Madrid Atletico

Bale suffered a suspected thigh injury and Spaniard Ceballos injected some much-needed energy into Real’s attack.

“I think that it was a tactical and tough contest,” Ceballos said. “We did enough in the second half to have won the game. If we show the same attitude as we did tonight, we can go on and achieve big things. 

“Gareth had a bit of discomfort and Julen [Lopetegui] told me to go out there and just be myself and to run at Juanfran. It’s a shame that after the bad knee injury he suffered he has been unable to perform to the same level.

“We created quite a few chances. If we continue on in this vein, the goals will come. This was my best performance in a Real Madrid shirt but what I take away with me is the fact that we failed to get the win. We were the ones who put our all into winning the game. We’ve now got the Champions League game on Tuesday and we have to keep going.”

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