CSKA Moscow v Manchester United: Champions League – live!

Hello. Don’t talk to Jose Mourinho about poetry. He isn’t a fan. Not in a footballing sense anyway. ‘There are many poets in football,” he said in response to criticism of his pragmatism after Manchester United beat Ajax in last season’s Europa League final, “but poets don’t win many titles.” And do you know who does win many titles? Mourinho. Two last season, 24 overall over the course of a 17-year managerial career. Clearly, then, there’s a fair amount of merit in his approach, even if it isn’t always to the taste of the neutral fan.
There are undoubtedly fair questions to be asked about whether Mourinho’s style of attack is still relevant in 2017; the Chelsea implosion is still fresh in the memory and he there was nothing dashing about the way United finished sixth last season after breaking the world record to sign Paul Pogba. But history shows that the second season is when everything begins to come together for Mourinho teams. It happened at Inter, Real Madrid and at Chelsea second time round, and signs are that it could be happening at United. Okay, they haven’t really played anyone of any note yet – hang your head in shame, Ronald Koeman – and they got done over by Real in the Super Cup, but there is a familiar remorselessness to them at the moment that Mourinho’s rivals will recognise and fear.
It would be nonsense to say that attacking football has suddenly become fashionable. It’s always been fashionable. Newsflash: people like goals. However it has become trendy at the highest level for managers to embrace risk by using intense pressing to overwhelm their opponents, attack as the best form of defence in its purest form. Done well, the logical conclusion is that your opponent can’t get the ball or out of their own third. But it has to be done right or it falls apart – and that’s why someone like Mourinho narrows his eyes when he sees that ... that ... that ... poetry. He prefers the traditional method of defending, eliminating the random and maintaining control, and it doesn’t bother him if he has to bore us half to death on the way to getting the thing that matters above all else: the result.
It’s not that his attacking players aren’t allowed to have an ice cream after dinner every now and then, which is why United have already had three 4-0 wins this season, but they’d damn well better have had their greens and done their homework first. In United’s opening group match against Basel, Mourinho fumed about “Playstation football” when they started showboating after going 2-0 up. He had no compunction about packing his defence to protect a 1-0 lead at Southampton on Saturday and he’s made it clear that United will be “humble” at CSKA Moscow tonight. Fourth in the Russian league, CSKA opened their Champions League campaign with an impressive 2-1 win at Benfica. As far as Mourinho’s concerned, this isn’t the time for poetry.
Kick-off: 7.45pm BST.


SOURCE : GUARDIAN SPORTS
posted by CAMPUS94