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2nd May 2017
09:04am BST

On Saturday afternoon, Eddie Howe's Bournemouth pushed themselves into the top half of the Premier League table and relegated Sunderland in the process with a 1-0 win at the Stadium of Light.
Throughout that game, their Republic of Ireland central midfielder completely controlled proceedings and he racked up the sort of statistics that even Xavi in his heyday would've been proud of.
Arter v Sunerland Passes completed: 89 Pass accuracy: 88.8% Through balls: 10 Long balls: 12 Dribbles: 2It showed what Arter and Bournemouth are about. The Irish international topped the charts for passing stats ahead of everyone else in the league this weekend - James Milner came closest with 79 with Manchester City's Fernandinho just behind him. Then, United went out at home to Swansea with a place in the top four in their own control and they were outplayed - no two ways about it. They were outplayed by Paul Clement's Swansea. Ander Herrera and Michael Carrick were selected in the middle - two fantastic footballers, one who's now a stalwart of the club and another who'd be in with a shout of player of the season if the team weren't performing with such underwhelming lack of conviction. But they weren't allowed to just go out and dominate Swansea.
That result - no, that performance - against Swansea completely undermined any justification Jose Mourinho might've had for playing such percentage football against Chelsea. It was like the team had been drilled so much into shutting down Hazard and Pedro that everything else to do with this game became irrelevant - stuff you particularly need at home to relegation strugglers. Stuff like playing football.
Look at the Spurs side at the minute that's absolutely thriving. They don't have a better team than United. They don't.
They've an excellent back five but De Gea is better than Lloris, Valencia is better than Walker and Eric Bailly is better than any of their centre halves. Wanyama and Dier or Dembele are good, solid players but anyone in their right minds would take Herrera and Pogba over them in a heartbeat.
Is Christian Eriksen any better than Juan Mata? Would Mkhitaryan not blow most of them out of the water? Then you go on into United's depth and there's just no comparison.
But it doesn't actually matter because those players aren't being allowed to play. Spurs right now are showing the value of what a good manager can actually achieve. United - with arguably the best squad in the league - are showing what an outdated manager does to your team.
Harry Arter alone is doing that too.
Mourinho would have a stroke if he thought one of his deep-lying midfielders was picking up the ball 105 times in a game.
He'll win more trophies at United, because it's going to be a one dull ride for United fans with unnecessary spills along the way. And it's not going to last that long either. Once again, he's shown no signs of changing.Explore more on these topics: