We dug deep - Randolph The Old Trafford side turned to Jose Mourinho ahead of 2016-17 after three underwhelming years under David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, but the former Chelsea boss has failed to get things back on track for now. United have collected just 20 points from their opening 13 fixtures, their worst total since 1990-91, when they actually found themselves on 21 points after 13 games, but had a point deducted following a brawl with Arsenal....

United meet Anderlecht in the quarter-final, first leg on Thursday with Ibrahimovic just two rounds from a title match in Stockholm next month. Whatever happened to Eric Cantona? Mourinho said: “It is the motivation of everyone at the club to go to the final and I believe maybe he has a little more motivation because the final is in Sweden. “Also because he has never played in this final during such an amazing career he has had....

The Red Devils may trail Manchester City in the Premier League by 14 points ahead of their match with the Baggies on Sunday, but Pardew believes that the Portuguese’s pragmatic style has allowed him to be the game’s best trophy winner. “Jose and myself would love to win a game 4-0 playing flamboyant football,” the former Newcastle boss said. “You can’t do that, you just have to find a way to win sometimes....

Man Utd reject Chicharito out to prove a point Fans are making their minds up sooner than before, changing their minds more rapidly, accepting defeats less graciously. Chairmen are sacking managers increasingly quicker in the face of poor results and heightened pressure, and managers dropping under-performing players more hastily in the face of ever-more immediate demands from all quarters. In the past few days it has been suggested to this writer more than once that Jose Mourinho could soon be sacked by Manchester United....

Mkhitaryan stretchered off against Tottenham The Armenian gave United the lead after 29 minutes of Sunday’s Premier League game to build on his recent string of encouraging performances, but had to be carried off on a stretcher after going over on his left ankle when challenged by Danny Rose in the 85th minute. But Mourinho has calmed fears Mkhitaryan will be out for a while, predicting he will miss their next two games against Crystal Palace and West Brom but should return for the Boxing Day clash against Sunderland....

The Red Devils have spent big in recent windows, splashing out a club record £89 million on Paul Pogba and £75m on Romelu Lukaku. Sizeable fees have also been required to land the likes of Eric Bailly, Nemanja Matic and Victor Lindelof. Further strengthening is expected in 2018, as a couple of experienced heads prepare to head for retirement and pastures new, but Mourinho insists there will be no elaborate rebuild at Old Trafford....

Rashford hails Mourinho after Hammers win The Red Devils, on the back of a frustrating opening to the campaign, have collected six straight Premier League victories. The most recent of those came away at West Ham on Monday, with the 10-man hosts seen off 2-0 by a thoroughly professional display. Mourinho saw his substitutions work to perfection, with Juan Mata and Marcus Rashford making telling contributions at the London Stadium....

Mourinho’s passions got the better of him right before halftime on a day that was shaping up to be fruitless even at that stage. The United manager’s calls for a penalty stemmed from a Jon Flanagan challenge on Matteo Darmian just inside the Burnley area; it was a long-shot at best but Mourinho cried out in desperation for it to be given. He tore into fourth official Kevin Friend on the sidelines with later reports suggesting that his row carried on to the tunnel where he confronted Mark Clattenburg....

Kane deal proves United not a big draw United have won only one of their last eight Premier League games - drawing six and losing the other 4-0 at Chelsea - leaving Mourinho’s men 13 points off the summit, despite the Portuguese vowing to deliver the trophy this season when he was appointed. Much of Mourinho’s campaign has been spent bickering with “Einsteins” in the media, or the Football Association, who have handed the former Chelsea boss two touchline bans already this term....

Mourinho is alleged to have defrauded the Spanish tax authorities of €3.3 million while he was Real Madrid manager. And he has now been summoned to appear in a courtroom on November 3, merely 48 hours before the clash at Stamford Bridge. “Jose Mourinho has not received any notification with regards to the news published today,” a statement from a prosecutor read on Friday. “To this date, neither the Spanish tax authorities, not the public prosecutor have contacted Jose Mourinho or his advisers who were hired for the inspection process....

United were criticised for their approach to a Premier League clash with Liverpool on Saturday, in which they were accused of playing deliberately for the 0-0 draw. Man Utd 5/2 to draw at Benfica Mourinho’s side head into the meeting at Estadio da Luz with two wins from two group games against Basel and CSKA Moscow, and another victory would put them in a commanding position to reach the last 16....

The decision was made by the New York State Liquor Authority (NYSLA), which said that all movie theaters across the state could apply for a new or revised liquor license. These licenses would allow people to actually take purchased alcohol to their seats while they watch their movies. The new ruling applies to beer, wine and cider only. Hard liquor, along with cocktails and other mixed drinks, are still prohibited by state law from being consumed inside auditoriums....

Though its business may not be the stuff of Hollywood drama, Netflix is the perfect response to the dot-com age, when an excessive reliance on immature technologies like digital downloading led to widespread ruin. The five-year-old Los Gatos, Calif., firm has placed a bet that all the talk of piping digital movies and TV shows directly into the home via fat broadband pipes is just that: a pipe dream....

Premier League side West Ham trailed to an early Will Grigg goal when Masuaku was dismissed four minutes into the second half. Replays indicated Masuaku appeared to spit at Powell and Moyes confirmed after the match the player had acknowledged his indiscipline. “I asked him did he spit? And he said yes,” Moyes told reporters. “Arthur - what he did was despicable. He will get something [a punishment] off us....

The picture of Hoover as a squeaky-clean G-man rooting out crime and communism has long since been shredded. He is more often portrayed these days as a one-man assault on the Bill of Rights, a virulent racist and gay-basher who was himself probably homosexual. Curt Gentry’s new biography of the man who ran the FBI for nearly half a century does nothing to alter or refine that image. But Gentry fills it in with squalid detail....

Bush did his part, of course. He and Dole have come to admire each other, leader to leader. The next day, Hatfield talked to Dole at the Capitol. For the first time in 27years, Dole told Newsweek, he pleaded with his longtime colleague to ““bend’’ on a principle. ““I’ve never asked youbefore,’’ Dole said. ““I’ll probably never ask you again.’’ No dice. Hatfield politely said no. Angry but resigned, Dole strode to the Senate floor, the only man who knew for sure he’d already lost....

Trump lashed out at his favorite cable news channel, Fox News, on Sunday over the network’s recent polls and a couple of their political pundits. “Fox is a lot different than it used to be. I can tell you that,” the president told reporters on Sunday, before then criticizing Fox News analyst Juan Williams and former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile. “They have the wonderful woman that gave Hillary Clinton the questions,” Trump said....

“It’s fascinating that conservatives have long pushed back on hate crimes because they say, ‘All murders are equal.’ ‘You shouldn’t categorize murders.’ They do it every day. Every time American students get shot by American terrorists, we can’t do anything about it,” Scarborough said. Republican lawmakers said very little in the wake of Thursday’s school shooting in Santa Clarita, California, the 366th mass shooting of 2019, according to the Gun Violence Archive....

In a segment on Friday, Hayes took aim at Carlson’s recent comments about the crisis at the southern border in Del Rio, Texas where thousands of Haitians, had been seeking to enter the U.S. Carlson had said on September 22 that the administration of President Joe Biden wanted to “change the racial mix of this country” in a monologue in which he referred to “the great replacement, the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far-away countries....