José Mourinho

For better or for worse, Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has taken every competition seriously this campaign. You could say for better because it’s resulted in United reaching the EFL Cup final, the FA Cup quarterfinals and the Europa League round of 16.

You could say for worse because with the Red Devils holding a 3-0 advantage over Saint-Etienne in the Europa League, Mourinho elected to field a strong side in the second leg, resulting in injuries that will rule both Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Michael Carrick out of Sunday’s EFL Cup final.

In direct defiance of former Manchester United hard man Roy Keane, Paul and Florentin Pogba again displayed feelings of brotherly love on the soccer pitch Wednesday: giving dap, exchanging jerseys, strolling around the pitch postgame, applauding everyone and refraining from threatening to murder each other and calling each other

FIFA’s Video Assistant Referee system debuted at the FIFA Club World Cup to mixed reviews, but that hasn’t stopped Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho from issuing a strong plea to move forward with the technology.

Speaking with FIFA.com ahead of The Best FIFA Football Awards, Mourinho was asked for his view on the system.

A meeting between two clubs sitting side-by-side in the Premier League table turned out to be a thoroughly one-sided affair, Manchester United traveling to the Hawthorns to play West Bromwich Albion and comfortably winning 2-0.

The gap between the top six sides in England and the rest of the division appears to be pretty large on the evidence of Saturday’s match between the Red Devils and the Baggies. United are now unbeaten in eight consecutive EPL matches, and they’ve drawn level, at least momentarily, with Tottenham, who have a game in hand.

You’ve likely heard that Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United are, after 13 Premier League matches, further down the EPL table than they were during the dog days of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal. You’ve also probably been told that Mourinho has won as many games (six) in his last 20 EPL fixtures as Sean Dyche, Sam Allardyce and, yes, David Moyes. And all this after spunking a bajillion of the late Malcolm Glazer’s hard earned dollars all over the summer transfer market.

We've been over why Bastian Schweinsteiger needs to be playing for Manchester United, so we're not going to do that again.

(sorry, can't help ourselves: it's because Marouane Fellaini is garbage)

Schweinsteiger's exile from the Manchester United first team finally ended Wednesday when he made a four-minute (plus stoppage time) cameo in United's 4-1 win against West Ham in the EFL Cup quarterfinals.

It’s the EFL Cup so everything must be taken with a grain of salt, but Manchester United’s dominate victory over West Ham in the quarterfinals saw United resemble a waking giant. It must also be said that West Ham’s performance was totally in line with their 2016-17 season so far — disastrous.

With only two minutes gone, the Red Devils opened the scoring after a brilliant exchange between Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. With both Paul Pogba and Marouane Fellaini suspended for the match, Mkhitaryan was handed a rare start and setup Ibrahimovic with a slick back heel.  

Dating back to December of 2004, it’s been a miserly stretch of 13 games for Arsene Wenger against his old nemesis, Jose Mourinho. It’s not just the inability to defeat the former Chelsea manager that must irk Wenger, but the style with which Mourinho has gone about stymying his Arsenal sides.

Eleven matches into the season and we are still waiting for Jose Mourinho and his squad to show any real signs of challenging for the Premier League title. It's still early, but United already trail Liverpool by eight points in the EPL table. 

Manchester United, it's fair to say, has not had the greatest season so far. Jose Mourinho's men currently reside in the foggy depths of sixth place in the Premier League table. To put that in perspective, they're even with Everton and three points above Watford.

To make matters worse, there has been a litany of issues for United in the past few weeks. A frustrating loss to Fenerbache in midweek has left United in third in their Europa League group and Mourinho's squad is facing a mini injury crisis.