London: Alexis Sanchez has endured a torrid start to his Manchester United career but hinted at better things to come with an impressive display in a central role ahead of the Champions League match against Juventus Thursday.
The injured Romelu Lukaku missed the 2-1 win at Bournemouth on Saturday and Marcus Rashford started on the bench as Jose Mourinho opted for a three-man forward line, with Anthony Martial and Juan Mata deployed either side of Sanchez.
The former Arsenal man was instrumental in United’s first-half equaliser, setting up Martial, and will be disappointed to have been substituted towards the end of the game.
The match, won by substitute Rashford in injury time, was a rare high point for the Chile international, who has struggled to find his feet since arriving at Old Trafford in January.
Following the much-needed win against Bournemouth, Mourinho praised Sanchez and spelt out his preferred system, saying he did not need a traditional centre-forward to lead his attack.
“The way I like to play is with three attacking players where there is not a clear definition of the winger as a winger,” the coach said.
“And I always had that in my team, with the wingers scoring a lot of goals, sometimes even more goals than the striker.”
“So it’s not impossible at all to have in the same team at the same time Rashford, Lukaku, Alexis for example. But today Romelu was not available and we thought that Alexis could do what he did,” Mourinho added.
However, United travel to Turin for the return date against Juventus, two weeks after they were outplayed during a 1-0 defeat at Old Trafford that left them five points adrift of the Italian champions in Group H.
The headache for Mourinho will be the his frontman Romelu Lukaku’s performance lately with the Belgian scoring his last goal in United colours mid-September. Lukaku is not the only one who has gone off the boil with Rashford also struggling despite his goal at the weekend.
But the manager would be happy with Martial’s performance with the Frenchman’s goals have been papering over the cracks during United’s recent mini-recovery.