Mourinho's conservatism costs Man Utd once again

It was yet another disappointing day for Manchester United as Jose Mourinho failed to inspire his team to victory away against Southampton
There is no denying Manchester United were affected by injury problems in Saturday's 2-2 draw with Southampton. The likes of Chris Smalling, Victor Lindelof, and Eric Bailly were all unavailable due to physical problems, while Marcos Rojo was not yet fit enough to start at St. Mary's Stadium. It left Jose Mourinho with a genuine selection headache in defense.

A similar situation back in February 2016 prompted then manager Louis van Gaal to promote a certain Marcus Rashford from the club's academy when United was short on attacking rather than defensive options for the Europa League encounter with Midtjylland.

The forward rewarded Van Gaal for the faith shown in him with a stellar performance as he scored twice in a 5-1 win at Old Trafford and he has since gone on to become one of the most exciting young attackers around in the game.

On Saturday, Mourinho found himself in a similar position to Van Gaal, but whereas his predecessor turned to youth, the Portuguese boss went for the conservative decision.

He opted to ignore United's academy and change to a 5-3-2 formation with midfielders Nemanja Matic and Scott McTominay at center-back alongside Phil Jones rather than give a hot prospect such as Lee O'Connor or Luca Ercolani a chance to show what they can do.

We only have one fit center-back," Mourinho told BT Sport. "I would like to have Nemanja Vidic but no Vidic, only Nemanja Matic.

And it quickly showed that Matic is no Vidic.

Some unconvincing defending from the former Chelsea midfielder eventually allowed Stuart Armstrong to open the scoring after just 13 minutes and Cedric Soares made things even worse for Mourinho's men when he curled a stunning free-kick into the top corner to make it 2-0.