Following Sunday's 1-1 draw at home to West Ham United Manchester United are now 11 points off first-place Chelsea in what is their worst start to a season in 27 years.
There are still 25 Premier League games left, so plenty of time to salvage the situation. But here are three area manager Jose Mourinho needs to address to get his side back on track.
Be more clinical
Mourinho claims United are the unluckiest side in the Premier League. His point is valid when you look at their shooting statistics.
Take the last four home league matches at Old Trafford: 24, 38, 12 and 17 shots in games against Stoke City, Burnley, Arsenal and West Ham – all ended in draws. United scored just three times, at a rate of a goal every 30.3 shots.
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That is pretty pathetic. If United were a striker with such a bad conversion rate, they would be jettisoned. Sunderland’s Jermain Defoe, for example, scores on average every 4.7 shots on goal.
Where Mourinho has a case in United being unlucky is that in three of those games, the opposition goalkeeper was man of thematch and in two of those United conceded very late equalisers.
No matter how you cut it, though, the bottom line is that United’s attacking line need to be more clinical in front of goal.
Play Henrikh Mkhitaryan
Armchair managers everywhere have been baffled by Mourinho’s decision to bench one of his star summer signings – Henrikh Mkhitaryan – for most of the season so far. Even after a superb performance in the Europa League thrashing of Feyenoord last week the Armenian was on the bench for Sunday’s game against West Ham.
There is always the impression that every move Mourinho makes is part of some sort of intricate, master plan that will eventually fall into place. Is it possible that Mourinho has simply got it wrong?
Surely the Portuguese would be best served by picking his best players, and the former Borussia Dortmund man Mkhitaryan, with his ability to unlock defences and score goals, is one of them.
You can often judge a situation by how the fans react. The Old Trafford faithful are excited when Mkhitaryan touches the ball. There is a desire to see him play every week, to see some of those draws turned into three points.
Sign Dimitri Payet
On current form, United will not finish in the top four and will therefore miss out on the Uefa Champions League for a third straight season.
Missing out on Europe’s stellar club competition is costing the club money: their kit deal with Adidas, worth £750 million (Dh3.4 billion) over 10 years, will drop by 30 per cent next season if they miss out again.
In that light, spending £20 to £30m in the January transfer window, if that helps United grab a top-four finish, would be money well spent.
There is one player who would seem a perfect fit for a switch to Old Trafford – West Ham’s Dimitri Payet.
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West Ham have struggled to replicate their form of last season, and sit just one place above the bottom three. Payet is 29 and this could be one of his last chances to join a club who can compete for trophies. The Frenchman was one of Europe’s best performers last season. He starred at Euro 2016 and has the stardust to take United to another level.
A bid of around £30m could tempt both club and player and could prove to be shrewd business. His delivery from set pieces alone is worth that. Imagine Juan Mata, Payet and Mkhitaryan in the same side.
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