Manchester United went down to a surprising 1-0 defeat to Newcastle on Sunday as Jose Mourinho continued his winless streak in the North-East of England where the United boss has always had big problems getting a result.
In their last five games United have lost two and won three and that run of form has seen them fall even further behind Manchester City. United are now 16 points in arrears of their big rivals and are only 2 points ahead of Liverpool, 3 points up on Chelsea and just 4 points up on the in-form Spurs team.
On February 21st United travel to Spain to face Sevilla in the first leg of the Champions League knock-out round at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium where the Sevilla vs United best odds have the Red-Devils at 6/4 to win the away leg despite their recent inconsistent form. Sevilla are currently in 6th position in La Liga, 6 points behind Real Madrid in 4th place who occupy the last Champions League qualification place.
Before the Sevilla clash the Red-Devils face Huddersfield Town away in the FA Cup on Saturday at the John Smiths Stadium where they have already lost one match this season in the Premier League.
United have faced a number of issues in recent games with the play of record transfer signing Paul Pogba being one of the main problems.
The French international has not been on form lately with a genuinely lacklustre display against Spurs showing how off the pace the midfielder is at the moment.
United have also been struggling to score goals with Romelu Lukaku having a tough time finding the back of the net as the big Belgian has had difficulty performing at the level he started his Red-Devils career at. Jose Mourinho has resisted giving Marcus Rashford or Anthony Martial a start at centre-forward and of course with the continued injury absence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic the United boss does not have an experienced striker to turn to except for a certain Chilean forward.
Anthony Martial should be pressing Jose Mourinho for a start at striker after he won the player of the month award for the 3rd time this season in January. With rumours of the Frenchman considering his future following the arrival of Alexis Sanchez at Old Trafford, the Man United manager might start to consider giving Martial a start in the centre-forward position.
However, considering how highly Mourinho regards new signing Alexis Sanchez, it is more likely that Jose will opt to start the Chilean hitman against Sevilla next week if he decides he wants to move Romelu Lukaku to the bench. Either way United will need to deliver a good performance if they are not to suffer a defeat at the hands of Sevilla who gave Liverpool all they could handle in both matches of the group matches in the Champions League earlier this season.