UK Edition
Jose Mourinho to ease Victor Lindelof into Manchester United life with Champions League starting place against Basel
Invited to praise the performances of new signings, Romelu Lukaku and Nemanja Matic, in the immediate aftermath of Manchester United’s opening day demolition of West Ham United, it seemed telling that Henrikh Mkhitaryan should make a point of mentioning the club’s other summer recruit, who was conspicuous only by his absence.
Mkhitaryan knows better than anyone what it feels to be Victor Lindelof right now. The Armenia midfielder was placed largely in cold storage by Jose Mourinho during his first few months at Old Trafford after an early baptism of fire and the United manager has opted for a similar approach with Lindelof as he gives the Sweden centre-half time to adjust to the particular demands of English football.
Lindelof has not been seen in a United shirt since a bruising competitive debut against Real Madrid in the European Super Cup defeat more than a month ago, an experience not entirely dissimilar to Mkhitaryan’s chastening first start for the club at home to Manchester City 11 months earlier, when he was hooked at half time and not seen again for eight weeks.
But United’s return to the Champions League on Tuesday evening will also mark the return of Lindelof, who will line up in central defence against Basel at Old Trafford alongside another forgotten man in Chris Smalling owing to the suspensions of Eric Bailly and Phil Jones.
Mourinho made a point on Monday of saying he would probably have opted to start with Lindelof and Smalling even if Bailly and Jones had been available, and was just as keen to stress that he felt there was little difference in quality between the respective pairs. “I don’t think Bailly and Jones are better than them, I think they are the same level but just different players,” he said. “I play them [against Basel] and for me it’s exactly the same as playing Bailly and Jones.”
That is not quite true, or at least not at this moment anyway, but it was easy to understand Mourinho’s desire to build up the confidence of two players who have been seldom seen of late. Smalling will have his own point to prove after a summer in which he might have left Old Trafford had fellow England defender Michael Keane joined United in addition to Lindelof, but it is a bigger night for the Swede as he bids to get his feet under the table following that £30.7 million move from Benfica. There was no hiding place against Real, when Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen criticised his lack of awareness in the lead up to both of the European champions’ goals.
He was sluggish that night and it is understood he did not find the going much easier in training to begin with, but while Portuguese observers have suggested Lindelof is not your typical Mourinho centre-half, it is easy to forget he is still only 23. United fans will remember that Nemanja Vidic struggled in his first six months in Manchester and Mourinho has already referenced the time it took Ricardo Carvalho to settle at Chelsea after moving from Portugal. Lindelof and his girlfriend, Maja Nilsson, are friends with compatriot John Guidetti and the former Manchester City striker’s partner Sanna Dahlstrom and picked the couple’s brains about Manchester when they got together recently in the city. Although they have since found a house, Lindelof and Nilsson spent the first month in Manchester living a few corridors away from Mourinho at the Lowry hotel. Whether there were many conversations between the player and manager over dinner is unclear but Mourinho retains high hopes for Lindelof.
“I think it’s easier for him to play Champions League, it’s more comparable to the Portuguese style of football,” Mourinho said. “But he needs a bit more time to adapt to the Premier League. He’s an intelligent kid, very bright, very calm, he knows step by step he is going to be there.
“For [Basel] I know he is more than confident and I am more than confident. He is a kid with a lot of potential, trust me. There is reason for Eric and Phil to be worried because he is a very good player.”