So this is a short piece I've been thinking about writing since we first spoke about Micky and how he would fit into Mourinho's "defensive" mindset. I'm not stating anything as fact, simply my thoughts on the matter.

Some will say Mourinho plays defensive and will continue to do so at United. Micky is the one signing here that actually gets me really excited because it goes completely against that philosophy. The inference with signing Micky is that Mourinho is going to play with pace and precision, something sadly lacking over the past 4 years.

Who remembers the counter-attacking football of the 96-12 Ferguson era? A common theme was that we were at our most dangerous when defending a corner. Schmeichel had amazing distribution and would come and claim the ball and ping a throw to one of the wingers at the half-way line, ten seconds later, we'd score. Opposing teams just could not deal with the pace and direction. We've seen glimpses of that distribution in David and despite the possession football, the counterattacks we did occasionally play were often started by him. The goalkeeper plays one of the most important parts in counter-attacking football.

The signing of Micky certainly harks back to that kind of football. We've also seen glimpses of this in Martial (and I certainly think this would suit a player like Memphis) and with the proper direction under Mourinho, Martial could very well end up costing us a lot of money, which would be very welcome to all of us.

Zlatan's distribution is top of the range as well, he sees space both for himself, and for others and despite his age, he still has amazing acceleration. He will be feeding balls out wide and then getting into the box at the right time to finish them.

This style of play does not suit some players, though, and I certainly can't see Mata and Fellaini fitting in. The one I worry about is Chris Smalling. He's been one of our best performers over the past couple of seasons and I highly respect him, but he steps over the line too often, often resorting to pulling or grabbing to get the advantage. It's worked for him thusfar because we had 70%-85% possession and his exposure to risk has been minimised. Under the new style of play I believe we're going to see, he will be doing a fair bit of defending and that's going to hamper him a lot. His saving grace here is that we won't be playing possession football and leaving ourselves short at the back when teams counter. He'll have more support and not feel as pressured as he did last season.

We're definitely going to need a Rooney in this style of play. When teams sit back, we need someone to open a defense and Wayne still has that capability. We won't be needing his pace and where he has deficiencies in his game (first touch, eye-of-the-needle passes) this will be mitigated with the skills he does have that serve the system particularly well (playing balls into space, vision, leadership).

What do you think? Do you think that signing Micky signals a change of intent in Mourinho?