Mourinho warrants wage demands after returning United to top billing
Manchester United are back. Not because of the point that they earned away to great rivals Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday, but because of the fact that no one can talk about anything other than the side’s goalless away draw and manager Jose Mourinho will take double satisfaction from that.
The Portuguese got what he wanted from his visit to Juergen Klopp’s side – not losing – and proof that he has returned to United from a point of irrelevance under David Moyes and Louis van Gaal to the club at the tip of everyone’s lips. Mourinho has an ulterior motive if reports in the following days are to be taken at face value, as he wants an improvement on his 15 million pounds ($20 million) per year contract to reflect the achievement of winning two trophies in his first season.
Truth be told, he might be worth that based on how he has put the club back on the agenda in England. Despite the teams playing out a goalless draw, it’s Mourinho that has been vilified for it, with the talking heads acting as if he has a responsibility to entertain rather than deliver the best result for his club in the circumstances.
The attitude that Mourinho’s United have a mandate to entertain is a great narrative but one that doesn’t suit a club that has finished seventh, fourth, fifth and sixth since Sir Alex Ferguson won his final Premier League title. It’s not the way that Mourinho has acted at any team when it comes to facing a rival, and the 0-0 was his ideal result. A stalemate was certainly no shock.
Especially because the Kloppmeister – or whatever nickname the press has giddily afforded a man beloved for his high-pressing, free-flowing side – started three defensive midfielders and then took off his three best attacking players during the game. The German may have won the post-match sound bites, after suggesting “it was OK” for Manchester United, but not Liverpool, to play defensively but his stance didn’t stand up to even the kind of halfhearted scrutiny his defenders have paid opposition forwards this season.
The funniest thing is that Liverpool against United as played out by Klopp and Mourinho has only failed to live up to its billing. Sky Sports hyped it up as “Red Monday” early last season, and it delivered almost nothing before the midseason meeting earlier this year added a goal for either side but little else. We were lucky this was even 0-0.
What is a shock is that the result, let alone the game, is the biggest talking point in a weekend of much more interesting games. Manchester City went two points clear at the top after Kevin de Bruyne inspired a 7-2 battering of Stoke City, champions Chelsea contrived to be the first to concede to Crystal Palace and then go on to lose, while Arsenal appeared to have laid down their arms already with defeat away to Watford.
These were less predictable outcomes but then again the reds make sure that the sports pages are read. Maybe the media should meet Mourinho’s new wage demands?