Manchester United have terminated the contract with Alexis Sanchez (Getty Images)
Manchester United have lacked cutting-edge in their attack this season. Although the Red Devils scored six goals from their first four games, two of those came from the penalty spot. While Jose Mourinho can be held guilty for not exercising any sort of tactical flexibility to make the best use of his attackers, the strikers have also squandered a lot of easy chances.
The likes of Romelu Lukaku, Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford, Juan Mata and Alexis Sanchez have all been utilized but the attackers have failed to link play with each other in the attacking third. To put it in simple words, United have lacked that much-needed cohesion, making the players look like individuals instead of a team.
While Lukaku has looked hilarious with his missed opportunities, Martial has not received significant game time. The Frenchman continues to remain out-of-favour under Mourinho and Rashford has looked promising but has been poor with his decision-making. Juan Mata has been pretty tidy with his passing and has made an earnest effort to link play from the right but the Spaniard has lacked support from his teammates.
Alexis Sanchez, who registered 2 goals and 3 assists last season, started off on the left of Mourinho’s 4-3-3 against Leicester City on opening day. After an impressive pre-season, great things were expected from the Chilean but the former Arsenal man failed to impact the final third.
He was often left isolated on the left and lacked options to link play. As a result, Sanchez was left with no other option than to simply deliver crosses into the box.
As one-dimensional and predictable as United have been with their attacks so far, the wingers haven’t made any attempt to link play with the midfielders. Instead, they have only relied on their crossing to find the target man in the box. And as the stats suggest, that ploy clearly hasn’t worked.
Mourinho has to experiment with his team dynamics to extract the best of Alexis Sanchez down the left. Here are two ways he can do so.
Mourinho hasn’t made the best use of Paul Pogba in his time at Manchester United. He usually deploys the Frenchman in a deeper role as a sweeper for the back four and hasn’t allowed him that degree of freedom to exploit the open spaces.
But the boss should utilize Pogba in an advanced role in the attacking third, allowing him to link play with Sanchez on the left. Considering the Chilean’s passing skills and ball control, he could be more lethal with Pogba for company.
Playing one-twos with Pogba should draw the defenders towards the Frenchman, allowing Sanchez that extra bit of space to get his crosses into the box. Also, Pogba’s presence near the final third could help Sanchez link play with the Frenchman while cutting inside from the edge of the box. Using Lukaku as the target man with Sanchez and Pogba in a supporting role should result in more goalscoring opportunities.
United’s crosses from the left flank rarely find the heads of any of the attackers. Sanchez has looked promising while linking up with Luke Shaw down the left but he needs more players inside the box to meet the crosses. Some good crosses from Sanchez and Shaw have gone begging as Lukaku has either been out of position or has misfired with his headers.
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Hence, Mourinho must utilize Jesse Lingard to link up play with Sanchez and Shaw down the left, with either Pogba/ or Marouane Fellaini making attacking runs into the box to support Lukaku.