Manchester United’s Premier League season can be described easily, draws, draws and more draws. Mourinho may think that Wenger is a specialist in failure, but the Portuguese is fast becoming a specialist in draws. United have drawn 6 of their last 10 Premier League games, with recent slips against West Brom and Everton at Old Trafford causing serious damage to their top 4 aspirations this term.
Draws can be deceptively costly, even though United haven’t lost a single game in 10 they have only bagged 18 points from a possible 30. The same as Everton who have lost twice, and only 3 points more than Leicester who have lost 5 times in the same period.
Many times this season Mourinho has bemoaned his side’s lack of luck, claiming they have dominated games and created chance after chance without finding the winning goal. However, there comes a point when you can’t blame luck anymore.
United have the most draws in the Premier League despite playing the joint least games, a whopping 12 of their 29 matches have ended level. If they could have just turned 3 of those 12 into wins then they would be joint with Liverpool in 3rd place (with two games in hand) and in a very strong position as far as Champions League qualification goes. A team that hasn’t lost in the League since the end of October should have a lot more points than United currently do.
It’s at home where United have the most problems with draws, 9 out of their 16 home games have ended level. Home draws against Stoke, Burnley, West Ham, Hull, Bournemouth and West Brom look particularly poor results this season.
Mourinho has made his side difficult to beat, in fact they haven’t conceded more than 1 goal in a single Premier League game since their last league defeat, a 4-0 loss at Stamford Bridge. The next step is winning with more regularity, you can be sure he will be looking to bring in as many match-winners as he can this summer. He needs game changers to make the difference, to turn his solid side into an exceptional one.
Antoine Greizmann has been heavily linked with a move to Old Trafford and would be just they type of player United could do with. They are all two reliant on Zlatan Ibrahimovic for goals and special moments and you can see why Jose Mourinho has lamented the loss of Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, who could supply both goals and moments of special inspiration. United need to share the load, and turn more of those draws into wins to be in with a shout of title glory next term.