Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho says his struggling squad lacks “mad dogs” after their 2-2 draw at Southampton in the Premier League on Saturday.
United fell 16 points of the top of the table after a third successive league game without a win, but the draw did at least see the Red Devils show fight in coming from two goals down.
Goals from Romelu Lukaku – the Belgian’s first for United since mid-September – and Ander Herrera levelled terms before halftime after Stuart Armstrong’s opener and Cedric’s brilliant free-kick strike.
With Chris Smalling injured, Mourinho deployed three central defenders – including Nemanja Matic – but the Portuguese refused to blame his system for United’s sluggish start.
The Special One reckons: “[It] doesn’t matter the system we play. [Not winning] has to do with the characteristics of players.
“With all the respect, we don’t have many mad dogs that bite the ball and press all the time we don’t have many people with that spirit.
“When the players don’t understand that simplicity is genius, especially in some parts of the pitch, they keep and keep playing too complicated football and it’s too difficult to have that continuity.”
Jose hailed Marcus Rashford for his role in setting up United’s goals and despite the player going off with an injury late on, insists the forward will be fit for Wednesday night clash with Arsenal.
Mourinho says: “Rashford runs at players and it causes havoc, it changes the picture all the time. And when he does that it’s obviously another goal.”