Mourinho is a specialist at failing to win games and great at making excuses

The Red Devils are enduring their worst start to a season since 1989 and despite Gary Neville leaping to Mourinho’s defence, time is running out

In the technical area, on the bench, in the stands, in the dressing-room, wherever, it doesn’t really matter.

Jose Mourinho is becoming a specialist in not winning football games at Manchester United.

Kicking bottles, ranting at referees, it doesn’t really matter.

Jose Mourinho is finding more and more ways not to win football games.

Four home league matches, varying levels of domination, same outcomes.

Four home league draws, eight points squandered, too many teams rapidly becoming too far removed for United to have a serious title claim.

It is that serious.

For Mourinho himself, he has won only 10 of his last 31 Premier League fixtures.

No United side of the Premier League era has had fewer points after the opening 13 matches of the season.

Mourinho used fifty percent of his programme notes to bemoan United’s misfortune.

So let’s get one thing clear.

United were not unlucky, they were wasteful and, at times, distinctly unimaginative in attacking areas.

Mourinho should not allow his players to be lulled into this idea that they are being punctured by arrows of outrageous fortune.

In terms of chances, West Ham might even claim they deserved parity even though, after taking a 90-second lead, they shrunk into a defensive shell for a long spell.

It was a simple opener.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is fond of imagining statues of himself. Well, there was one in Manchester and it was marking Diafra Sakho when Dimitri Payet dipped a free-kick on to his striker’s head.

Culpability for a goal is never likely to knock the swagger out of Zlatan’s stride and he only had to give Paul Pogba’s clip a guiding nod to level matters.

Dwindling mobility might be an issue but Ibrahimovic is a striker who attracts chances. That is why Mourinho is already talking about an extra year.

Ibrahimovic still carries United’s strongest striking potency, which explains why this issue of turning dominance into something more meaningful remains.

Such was his sudden emergence, Marcus Rashford’s head was always going to spin at some stage and his was an uncertain, unconvincing contribution, typified by his failure to beat Darren Randolph in a head-to-head.

His withdrawal midway through the second half was certainly not premature.

By that point, Mourinho had long, long been turfed out of his technical area.

That he has previous with Jonathan Moss and that his offence did not seem overly serious is irrelevant.

He simply finds it difficult to conduct himself with any amount of decorum.

It’s not a great look for the manager of any top club.

Considering United won with some comfort the last time Mourinho served a touchline ban, another absence is hardly a mortal blow.

His banishment made little difference against a West Ham team that was more purposeful in the second half.

United remained in the ascendancy but wasted opportunities with a degree of predictability.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan found an upright on his return to Premier League action and Zlatan was sluggish in a couple of promising situations.

Matters could have been worse for Mourinho, West Ham substitute Ashley Fletcher making a hash of a couple of knife-twisting opportunities.

The talk from United players on in-house TV was again of exasperation, of wondering what they have to do to win a home league match.

The answer is … an awful lot better than this.

And wherever you might find Jose, he must surely know it.