Mourinho Cannot Afford Passengers At Manchester United

Manchester United's players cannot become passengers in the side if they are to win the Premier League, Neil Custis told the Sunday Supplement.

Jose Mourinho was critical of his team's display at Old Trafford, where they lost 2-1 to rivals Manchester City.

The United boss started both Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard, but hauled them off at half-time, bringing on Marcus Rashford and Ander Herrera.

And Custis, The Sun's northern football correspondent, said Mourinho cannot afford for players to go missing if they are to challenge for the league.

"Mourinho has come in and made the players feel wanted and he's getting the best out of them," said Custis.

"But you can't afford to have passengers in a side when you can only lose three or four games this season in order to win the league.

"He was alarmed that two players [Mkhitaryan and Lingard] could play so poorly in the first half.

"Mourinho has not come in to leave a legacy, he's come in to get them winning trophies. Nothing else matters at that club right now and the players have to respond.

"He hasn't got time for players to play the way they did in the first 45 minutes."

City's opening 40 minutes drew plaudits from the Sunday Supplement panel, as Kevin De Bruyne and Kelechi Iheanacho put them 2-0 up before Zlatan Ibrahimovic responded before the break.

Mourinho's decision to not change anything before half-time surprised the Mail on Sunday's Oliver Holt, who highlighted that the 53-year-old rarely shies away from making early tactical changes.

Earlier in the season, Mourinho brought Juan Mata on in the Community Shield, only to take him off again in the dying minutes of their victory over Leicester City.

"I was surprised he [Mourinho] didn't change it earlier, he has a history of not being scared to change it," said Holt.

"He should have changed it earlier because it was so obvious they were being brutalised by City, 15 minutes in.

"He's not done a lot for their confidence when slaughtering them after the game.

"I'm kind of surprised he criticised the players so early in the season. He would not have done that at Chelsea in his first spell, in the second he started to do it and we saw where that went."

Credit: Skysports.com