José Mourinho has demanded more goals from Manchester United, with the manager pointing to a lack of potency as a key factor in their faltering Premier League form.
United host Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday having scored only 19 goals in 14 Premier League games. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the top scorer with eight but the striker has been poorly supported. Juan Mata and Marcus Rashford have managed three apiece; Paul Pogba has two; Anthony Martial, Wayne Rooney and Chris Smalling having provided one each.
United have drawn six matches, scoring only twice in those fixtures, and are sixth, 13 points behind the leaders, Chelsea.
“Sometimes little details make a difference and the goal is a big detail. We are not scoring enough goals for the football we play,” Mourinho said. “When we play against other teams in the Premier League, the goalkeeper is normally man of the match. They save everything. Goals make a huge difference so we need to score more goals.”
He compared Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Everton with Thursday’s 2-0 victory over Zorya Luhansk which sealed their passage to the Europa League knockout stage. “1-0 up [at Goodison Park], complete control, Herrera hit the post, no 2-0. They go there in the last minute, goal. Against Zorya 1-0, we go there in the last 10 minutes, we scored the second goal. Game over,” he said.
Rooney struggled against Zorya and looked dejected when he was replaced during the second half. Of the captain’s lack of goals, Mourinho said: “In my team, he is an attacking player – he will play as a 9 or a 10, or eventually coming from one of the sides. So as an attacking player, normally he scores more goals.
“He scored a couple, I think against Fenerbahce and one in the Premier League. We expect more goals from him but we expect more goals from everyone in the team.
“Maybe Zlatan is the one but as the main striker it is normal that he has more goals scored. But all the other attacking players, we expect more goals from them.”
Ibrahimovic echoed Mourinho by stating he wants United to start finishing off games. He said: “We want to kill every game we play. As long as you create the chances you will score but you need to get the three points also. That is more important but you can get the three points by winning 1-0 and not only 4-0.
“I think we are performing very good. The team has got a good balance. We have had some unlucky games, some games we made simple mistakes to concede a goal, but most of our game is good. If we can just get a couple of wins in a row it would give us even more confidence. We have created many chances and sometimes you win 1-0 also. You need to close [the game] at 1-0. It hasn’t happened yet but we are working hard. We have learned we have to score more than one goal to get the three points.”
United trail Tottenham by six points and are a further three behind Manchester City, who occupy the final Champions League berth. Of the need to start closing the gap by beating Spurs, Mourinho said: “It is always important to win. When we played Arsenal, it was important to win. We played to win, we deserved to win, but we didn’t win. We played against Everton, we had one more point than Everton [before the game]. It was important to win and go to four. We played to win, we deserved to win, but we didn’t win.
“Every game is important to win, so against Tottenham we are going to try to play. We are going to try and deserve victory and we are going to try to win. I think the team is playing very well and probably the Ukrainian fans did not see the best Manchester United of the season.
“Because the best Manchester United of the season was the team that played the last four, five or six matches in the Premier League, and managed one victory and four or five draws. We are playing very well but we need more goals.”
Luke Shaw and Chris Smalling remain unavailable for Sunday’s game because of injury but against Zorya Eric Bailly came through a first start since late October following a knee problem. Mourinho will be without the Ivory Coast defender when the Africa Cup of Nations starts next month.
“He is a big loss but we know that, so let’s hope that Smalling can recover in time to replace him in the squad,” he said. “With so many matches, we need players. I think we have Jones, Bailly and Marcos OK, we play Tottenham, we play Crystal Palace, West Bromwich, Reading, semi-finals [in the EFL Cup], West Ham away – in that period we have lots of matches and it’s important to have more options. Smalling will be back I think by end of the year, by Christmas.”