Whilst the need for sports journalists to cover their back pages on a daily basis is necessary to keep them in a job by getting people talking, even the week of disappointment for Manchester United was hardly a legitimate reason to lead the headlines in a call of ‘crisis’.
A torrid run of performances after the international break saw the Red Devils lose to their Manchester city rivals, before consecutive losses to Feyenoord and Watford rang the alarm bells for Jose Mourinho after an almost perfect start to his job at Old Trafford.
The start to rectifying that brief spell of disaster started with a 3-1 win at Northampton on Wednesday night, as Michael Carrick, Ander Herrera and Marcus Rashford grabbed the goals to give United their first win of September.
They will be hoping to carry that momentum forward to Saturday against champions Leicester City, who will undoubtedly be a different kettle of fish to the League One side. However, the win should relieve United and Mourinho of the pressure that would have been mounted on with a fourth loss on the bounce.
The expectation of winning ways, whether it be home or away, is always with Manchester United – even in their darker days over the past few years, it still classifies as an upset whenever they lose once – let alone three times in a row. In that sense, it was justifiable that questions were asked this week by the media and even fans after having spent millions to reinvest, only to be back at square one.
But the reality is that the Red Devils are – progress has been made in the sense of addressing the issues that needed addressing, primarily relating to more goals, midfield problems and a sense of structure and urgency in play. Those were never going to be resolved overnight, even with an elite level manager like the Portuguese in charge at the helm. But the signs are there just a few months into Mourinho’s reign at the Theatre of Dreams.
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In fact, it may be a blessing in disguise that this rough patch has come early on and not at a crucial time where United hope to be challenging on all fronts in and around April/May time across the latter stages of different competitions they are in. Therefore, things can be identified and rectified now rather than later.
Maybe a crisis is on the horizon. Maybe it isn’t. It might be next year. Or in a few years. Or perhaps not again. But this September blip surely doesn’t count as anything but a reality check that the honeymoon period is well and truly over for Jose Mourinho.