West Ham United 3-1 Manchester United: 4 Mistakes by Mourinho that cost the game

#2 Not starting with Rashford

Marcus Rashford is perhaps one of the most talented youngsters in World football right now and it is sad that his development has slowed down under Mourinho. Against a team who are unpredictable and can press continuously, United needed the pace of Rashford. United needed Rashford to work in tandem with Martial and keep the fullbacks and midfield busy, unfortunately, Mourinho did not see the use of that.

Switching to a front two without a number 10 to thread the balls was another problem. Mourinho has continuously brushed aside the talents of Mata, but the Spaniard had a good run in the midweek defeat and deserved to be in the starting eleven. Even though Mata did not have too much of an effect when he came on later in the game, Rashford’s introduction put a bolt of electricity into the field and United looked like threatening for a moment, as the youngster scored brilliantly.

However, Rashford’s talent requires blossoming, which he misses under Mourinho continuously. The Portuguese’s lack of belief in Rashford and his decision not to start with the youngster was a mistake that impacted the game.

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Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written close to 9000 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.

Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.

Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.

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Edited by Sripad