Manchester United is winning because Jose Mourinho remembered how to use his subs

Forget the capering on the touchline. Forget the shouting and ranting and raving. Forget the scowling and the folding of arms. Forget the wagging finger and the shaking head. If you really want to know how a football manager is feeling about things, about their team and their squad, deep in their soul and their bones, look to their substitutions.

Last season, Louis van Gaal acquired a signature substitution. Game after game, as his Manchester United side shuffled from side to side and back again, as Old Trafford yawned and sighed and begged for an injection of something, he would make his move. Off would come a fullback; on would go another fullback. It was, in its own way, just as emblematic of Van Gaal’s time in charge as his clipboard and his lady with the saxophone. Everything is fine, it said. The philosophy is working. All we need to do is keep on keeping on, with slightly fresher legs. Why on earth would we need another striker?

United, of course, missed out on Champions League qualification on goal difference, and Van Gaal lost his job as a result.

Enter Jose Mourinho. There were plenty of reasons behind United’s slow start to the season, chief among which was probably the basic principle that everyone needed time to get used to one another. But their new manager’s strange substitutions certainly didn’t help matters. Frequently, it seemed, as though those going off the field had been among the best performers on the day, while those coming on looked incapable of doing anything useful.

As such, United found themselves unable to take control of games in the final moments, to get back into games or, more often, to see out narrow victories. With a certain inevitability, the poster child for this incoherent bench policy was Marouane Fellaini. He came on against Everton with five minutes to go, with a view to closing out a 1-0 win, and gave away the equalizing penalty four minutes later.

Now, though, a look at United’s results over the festive schedule suggest that Mourinho and his squad are working as they should. The manager has been bold with his changes and has been rewarded. Against an obstinate Middlesbrough, and one goal down, the introduction of Marcus Rashford for Chris Smalling signaled the beginning of a siege.

But that ended when Juan Mata, an earlier substitute, crossed for Paul Pogba to nod home the winner. Then, two days later against West Ham, the same two players came from the bench to combine for the opening goal. Rashford impressed enough in his half-hour in the pitch to take home the Man of the Match Award.

This is, in part, because Rashford and Mata — the former quick and skillful, the latter clever with and without the ball, and an underrated finisher — are excellent players to be able to introduce, particularly against tired defenses (or, as Mourinho said later, when “everybody is dying”). It’s also, perhaps, because United were chasing these games and their attacking options are better than their defensive ones.

The narrow lead, send for Fellaini problem might not be over. But the Premier League’s festive schedule is as hectic an examination of squad management as professional football offers. Three wins from three suggests that Mourinho is starting to get the hang of who in his squad can do what, and how to influence games from his technical area.

This goes beyond substitutions, too. Anthony Martial, who has looked peripheral and distracted for much of this season, was excellent against Boro. Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s absence may have extended beyond cautious and into bizarre, but he’s gone from exile to First Team fixture in super-quick time, and Michael Carrick’s been welcomed back from the fringes.

There’s a fair chance that Mourinho would replace every single one of United’s defenders if he could. He’s shuffled and chopped and changed, and kept things just tight enough. Also, he’s reminded Phil Jones that he’s supposed to be a footballer.

This is all useful for United, not just because it leads to good performances, wins, and Premier League points. It also provides an early sign that one of the lingering suspicions that followed Mourinho from Chelsea — that the near-total collapse of his title-winning side meant that he’d completely forgotten how to talk to footballers without making them hate him — might not be entirely justified.

Certainly, the sight of Rashford coming on with a job to do, doing it, and winning a game in the process, suggests an encouragingly functional relationship between player and manager.

There are caveats, obviously. United’s six-game winning run in the league has contained several potentially awkward opponents, but only Tottenham of United’s rivals for the European places. Next up in the league — after a break for some cup games — is Liverpool at Old Trafford, which should provide a stiffer test of Mourinho’s game management.

Generally, there’s an element of lowered expectations here. To be able to change a game with a substitution or two is almost the bare minimum required of a manager and a club with even modest ambitions and resources. For Manchester United and Jose Mourinho, it should be a given. But for the moment, it’s working now where it wasn’t before, which is always notable. And it’s a notable improvement from “fullback on, fullback off.”