LONDON: If you’re looking for an argument as to why Jose Mourinho is the wrong man for Manchester United you don’t have to look far. Too defensive, too abrasive, doesn’t use academy graduates, can’t defeat strong Premier League opponents, surpassed by the “modern generation” of managers, doesn’t teach his teams how to attack.
If you prefer to compare where Manchester United are as a football team to where they were before Mourinho’s arrival you may come to a different conclusion. In the three years of turbulence and unprecedented spending that followed Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, United won just one major trophy, stumbling to Premier League finishes of seventh, fourth and fifth.
Yes, the combination of new executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and the managerial input of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal resulted in hundreds of millions being “invested” in transfer fees and salaries. Yet the net effect was to leave United with a squad palpably weaker than Ferguson’s final title-winning group despite a £51.7 million ($69.9 million) hike in annual salary spend.
“It’s difficult to change the dynamic,” said Mourinho ahead of his first Old Trafford campaign. “It would be easier to have 22 new players and start from zero. For two years they had principles and I have to change them. There are things in their brain that are automatic and that is difficult to change.”
In a September interview with this journalist, Mourinho expanded on the difficulties.
“There was an evolution in the other clubs; there was no evolution at all in this club,” he said. “In all the areas that make a team successful I think we stopped in time. When I say ‘the club’, I say the football team and what surrounds the football team was in trouble, big trouble.”
If Mourinho does not yet have the team exactly where he wants it to be — he planned the squad’s rebuild as a three-year project — it is no longer in big trouble.
In the mere 16 months since Mourinho’s first competitive match United have trebled their post-Ferguson major trophy count, taking a League Cup and the club’s first Europa League. They are back in the Champions League and all but through to the knock-out rounds. Their League Cup defense has reached the quarter-final stage.
Statistically, United have the best defense in the Premier League, have scored more goals (35 in 15 fixtures) than everyone but leaders Manchester City, and are on course for a final points return of 89. To place that in historical context, in just two of the past 11 seasons have the champions finished with 90 points or more. (Mourinho delivered the League record haul of 95 points in his first year at Chelsea.)
That this level of progression is presented by many as sub-standard is down to one principal factor — the record-breaking achievements of Pep Guardiola’s City. United’s rivals stand astride the Premier League on a record-equalling run of 13 wins.
They remain unbeaten in all competitions, have a perfect 15 points from their five Champions League group games, and are being seriously talked of as potential quadruple winners. Even as potential “New Invincibles,” capable of surpassing Arsenal’s undefeated 2003-04 English title campaign — only with more wins, points and goals.
Guardiola’s team is producing beautiful, possession and attack-focused football that has already delivered 61 goals from 22 competitive matches. Only Wolverhampton have managed to shut City’s multi-faceted attack out. His carousel passers travel to Old Trafford on Sunday as clear favorites for a victory that would fatten their title race cushion to 11 points.
United are handicapped. They have significant injuries in central defense and midfield, and their narrative-defying 3-1 win at Arsenal last weekend came with the cost of a red card to the team’s most creative player. Unless Andre Marriner is recognized to have made a mistake in sending off Paul Pogba — after the midfielder lifted a ball over an opponent who bizarrely decided to enter a 50-50 challenge in a position more familiar to cricket than elite football — the most anticipated match of this Premier League season will be deprived of English football’s record recruit.
Despite all he’s achieved at Old Trafford, Mourinho’s back is against another wall. He’ll be lined up to it for verbal execution should City not be stopped on Sunday.