r/reddevils is a place with really polarizing opinions. People with negative things to say about the manager are often relentlessly downvoted while people who criticize Rooney, for example, receive positive feedback in the form of upvotes.

I'm posting this in the expectation that many people won't like what I have to say, but it's just an opinion so please bear that in mind.

In my view, Mourinho's tenure so far is in a uniquely thin space between absolute disaster and thoroughly satisfactory. I say this because football is a results business, and victory in the EL gets us the results we set out to achieve at the start of the season: multiple trophies and a CL spot.

On the contrary, elimination or a final defeat lends to a much more negative viewpoint of our season. The reasons for negativity comes down to three key points for me:

• Mourinho's tactical approach against good teams

• Mourinho's negativity towards players and public criticism of those players

• Mourinho's general squad management

On the first point, a Mourinho side has not scored an away goal against a top-six side since January 1st, 2015. He is consistently inflexible in his tactics away from home. With a bolder setup, I think Arsenal were there for the taking. Ditto with City. Instead, he always opts for a conservative approach. When it works, we congratulate him on his management. But when it doesn't work, he's left looking a bit silly. We have the players to hurt the opposition; he needs to use them in a way they can hurt them. Even with the setup yesterday, we created a couple of chances. If we'd have been bolder, I think we'd have won. The problem with limiting your attacking in this way is that when players miss chances, your side nearly always gets punished for it. With more attacking tactics, you move on and create more chances. Against the weaker sides, he excels quite well with implementing these tactics. The games we've drawn at home against weaker sides have not been his fault, moreso the prolifigacy of the players.

Secondly, I just don't agree with criticizing players in public all the time. It worked with Mkhi, but I suspect that a private arm around the shoulder and a willingness from Mkhi to work harder helped his case more than any open criticism. One thing about Fergie was that he protected players in public (unless they really pissed him off). I think I remember him criticizing people twice in the 20 years I've watched football. He didn't hold back in private, though. Not every manager needs to be Fergie, it's just my belief that Mou needs to keep this stuff behind closed doors.

On the third point, I think it was perhaps a mistake not to let certain players go mid-season. Schweini and Schneiderlein would've been rather useful as our squad became increasingly stretched. Unlike Fellaini, these guys know how to make forward passes.

There are positives, though. While I'm not happy with the approach against good teams, he has made us difficult to beat and instilled a sense of defensive discipline we've lacked for quite a while.

He sets the players out to attack at home, which is what we want. The players are at fault for many of the points we dropped at home.

He also deserves credit for trusting Rashford.

At the end of the day, success in Europe will make or break both the manager's and our football club's season. I think it's important to recognize his shortcomings as well as his successes, though, and not blindly reject any criticism of him. I've seen it on post-match threads, where people who are perceived to be moaning are in reality telling the truth about how we played and what the manager did wrong.

Because when people feel they cannot share opinions that don't go with the circlejerk without anyone automatically downvoting or hurling abuse at them, then this sub tends to become worse off and increasingly myopic.