Manchester United are stuck in the mud. The team needs a new direction out of the woods to justify its high ranking in international football. Ironically, the Red Devils have the right man at the helm to navigate the club out of what I have chosen to call the troubled times, without necessarily pressing the panic destruct button.
Will Mourinho get a big club to secure his services, if the Red Devils swing the big axe? The fans are behind the manager and it could be the only reason why the Special One’s bluff won’t be called. If the fans were not behind the manager, his days at Old Trafford would have been numbered. Or is the manager talking too much? Could it also be that there is a hidden players’ revolt to warn the manager that they deserve some respect, especially with the way he has treated some of them? These are posers which Mourinho must think through in his quiet moments lest he presses the panic destruct button.
Mourinho is spending his first season in the dugout without his No 2 Rui Faria beside him. Could this be the reason for United’s wobbly displays in the last three matches? Faria spent close to 20 glorious years at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid. But feelers from the Faria camp suggest that both men may have to part ways in the no distant future following Faria’s ambition to lead another European club’s technical crew. Could it be that Faria’s exit has depleted Mourinho’s bags of tricks? The impact is clear. Mourinho looks lost, isolated and nervy without his mate.
Close watchers of the Mourinho cum Faria coaching tag-team have seen them as being compatible, with the latter having the ability to intervene when his boss goes off the track, especially on the sidelines. Faria knew when to step in for Mourinho, if he didn’t want to lampoon the match officials. If Mourinho was unable to deliver his sulky, sarcastic one-liners at press conferences, Faria filled in the gap. If his boss was banned or sent to the stands during a game, he stood in.
Manchester United are struggling under Mourinho’s haphazard management but all is not lost yet because the Special One is renowned for doing the unexpected. Indeed, he operates best under immense pressure. But will the Red Devils’ management give Mourinho the room to rant as he did after his team was roundly beaten by Tottenham at Old Trafford Stadium on Monday night?
Mourinho told the press in a post-match conference: “Do you know what was the result? 3-0. But what this [three fingers] also means? ‘It also means three Premier Leagues and I won more alone than the other 19 managers together. ‘Me three, them two. So respect, respect, respect.” Vintage Mourinho, but he needs to come down from his high horse and face the task of returning the Red Devils to winning ways.
But will United’s management say Mourinho didn’t warn them about the dire consequences of not strengthening the squad ahead of the new season? He did. He even mentioned clubs, such as Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea etc, giving their squads depth with recruitment of quality players.
A few purists have argued that Mourinho’s warning to the management was his defence mechanism to undermine the third year jinx in clubs he has coached. But top commentator Adam Crafton told Dailmail.co.uk that: ”We are three games into a 38-match Premier League season plus three cup competitions. Manchester United took only two points from their first three games 11 years ago and went on to win the Premier League and Champions League.
”So this situation need not be fatal but it does feel like the end. Ander Herrera at centre back? His signings Eric Bailly and Victor Lindelof dropped? Marouane Fellaini thrown on as Mourinho appears to have lost all faith in creative talents Juan Mata, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial? Mourinho has lost a sense of control and direction for this team. He must regain it quickly but one suspects things might instead worsen.”
Will Mourinho be sacked? Or what would it cost Manchester United to dispense with the Special One’s services? Would it be worth the trouble since the season is just three weeks old? And with a seeming cheap fixture this weekend against Burnley, it would be foolhardy to continue the talk of a likely sack for Mourinho, with his replacement being Zinedine Zidane.
‘They are saying Jose will be gone soon,’ a source told Sportsmail on Tuesday night. ‘Some think he’ll be out if they lose at Burnley. Others can’t see him lasting beyond September. We’ve seen this before and it just feels the same. The club will say it’s supporting Jose but we all saw what happened with Louis. The players are already talking about the possibility of Zidane coming in.’ Hmmm, coaches’ sack begins with statements like this around the club and within the players with no one tough enough to air his views for fear of Mourinho’s axe when things normalise like it would soon for the iconic manager. Those rooting for Mourinho’s sack are being mischievous, not after what he has achieved with the Red Devils, which can only be matched by Sir Alex Ferguson, but over a longer period.
Mourinho has learned lessons from players’ mutiny against him twice at Chelsea and at Real Madrid. It was evident in the way he walked up to the players to console them after the defeat. He also walked with studied steps, claps and waving at the fans to forget what they saw and look up to better days at the Theatre of Dreams. No prize for guessing that the English press were waiting to slay the enigmatic coach at the post-match conference. and he gave it to them in full dose. If Mourinho didn’t do what he did with the media it wouldn’t have been Jose.
Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan said in the fallout of the Mourinho press war: “I do not know a journalist that has ever bought a football club, that has ever managed a football club, ever sold a player, ever bought a player, ever picked a team, or ever been first hand in any experience which gives that the opportunity to be able to put certain parts of football to the sword.
“A journalist’s job to my view is to give an objective opinion, not to write what they think is a fact and to represent it as fact and to create news rather than to report news.
“I look at some of those journalists and I listened to Henry Winter (on the Jim White show on Tuesday) and at no point did not I think I was ever going to ask a journalist about how Jose Mourinho should manage his football club, in no more order than I would expect Jose Mourinho to tell Henry Winter how to write a book or to write an article.”
Should Mourinho always confront the media when things go awry? Former coach Goran Eriksson feels strongly that the Special One should allow his work do the talking. What do you think?
Asked whether Mourinho deserves more respect, Eriksson told Skysports News: “Maybe. Maybe not. But l don’t think he should say it, l think that should be automatic. It’s always like that, when you are criticised as a coach and l’ve seen it many times in England, outside England, and wherever. It’s better to keep quiet.
“Don’t try to defend yourself because the results defend you. It’s only by result you can defend it and that’s in the paper. Read it, don’t talk about it. Especially when you start to argue with the press. You will never win. You will always lose because if you are the journalist, you have the journalist, you have the last word; you write it.
“So keep quiet, put your head down and go on working and show people in the next game we will play good football and we will win. I don’t want to start the only way to answer now l’m talking about me and how l was. Don’t start to talk about showing me respect.”
“Respect is what everyone knows in football. What l have done. I know what l have done. I know what I have done. I know what I’m good at and what l’m not good at and every manager is the same. So when you’re criticised swallow it.”
Mourinho replaced Dutchman Louis van Gaal as manager of Manchester United ahead of the 2016-17 season. He is tasked with the revival of the Red Devils.
Since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013, the club has endured a difficult period but restored a bit of pride with three pieces of silverware: the Community Shield, the League Cup and the Europa League. And has qualified for consecutive UEFA Champions League.