Mourinho needs to leave mess behind
ANOTHER WEEK gone and Manchester United are sinking deeper and deeper into crisis, like a baby elephant struggling desperately to keep its head above suffocating quicksand.
The once proud club have become little more than a laughing stock as off-field rifts and embarrassing performances between the white lines continue to overshadow their season.
The battle of enormous egos between manager Jose Mourinho and marquee player Paul Pogba is what’s grabbing most of the headlines and, almost Saipan-like, supporters and ex-players seem to be choosing one side or the other.
Both are bad eggs in my book, and if I was a Man United fan I’d want the pair of them out the door quicker than the flush of an Old Trafford toilet.
Obviously players, like Pogba and his ilk, are much harder to handle these days, with their tens of millions of Twitter followers and over-inflated sense of self importance, and the feeling is that the authoritarian Mourinho struggles to rein in annoyingly flashy modern footballers.
If you look back at Mourinho’s highly-decorated career, his greatest successes came at Porto, Inter Milan and Chelsea, big clubs in their own right, but nowhere near the stature of Real Madrid or Manchester United in global terms.
Despite his portrayal of unwavering self-confidence, Mourinho just doesn’t seem to be able to deal with the pressure that comes with the territory at truly giant clubs like Real and United.
Okay, he managed to win trophies at both (who wouldn’t with the resources at his disposal?), but he has never looked completely at ease in the pressure cooker atmospheres of Old Trafford and the Santiago Bernabeu.
Despite all the bells and whistles attached at the time of his unveiling, Mourinho never seemed a good fit for the Red Devils.
His overly cautious approach to the game was an obvious stumbling block, but his increasingly fraught relationships with the media, players and club hierarchy everywhere he’s been should surely have set the alarm bells ringing before he even walked through the door.
Tales from his time at Real Madrid and Chelsea meant United were always taking a massive punt in bringing the Portuguese former ‘Special One’ to the club.
Winning trophies that supporters would previously have scoffed at has papered over the cracks somewhat, but it’s in the league where you see how your team is progressing, and United have certainly regressed on that front.
Mourinho’s brain is frazzled from the pressure of it all and an erratic mind can’t get all the ducks in a row. That’s why United have no plan and no structure. He continually has disputes with players and blames the referees or the media, all to deflect from his own shortcomings.
He has one of the most high-profile jobs in football and the world is watching closely as it all unravels around him, and unfortunately the picture he has painted of himself as some sort of messiah is coming back to haunt him. He has tried everything he knows, but it just isn’t good enough.
He can’t miraculously conjure a magic rabbit out of a hat and there’s no groundbreaking innovative tactic that he can turn to to spark an upturn in fortunes, so it doesn’t look like things are going to get any better.
When Mourinho feels the weight of the world pressing down on him, like his team, he goes into his defensive default mode, crankily trying to deflect the blame, but despite his claims of deity he’s human like the rest of us and is plain and simply not up to the job at present.
Despite playing hard-to-watch football, Manchester United somehow managed to take second place last term, light years behind Man City, but the warning signs and rumblings of discontent were already there.
Winning trophies became commonplace for Manchester United in the Ferguson era, but it wasn’t just about the cabinets laden with silverware, it was also about the manner in which it was achieved, playing a brand of football that would get supporters on the edge of their seats.
Now the Old Trafford faithful slouch in their expensive seats more in hope than expectation.
Down the road at City, Pep Guardiola has built a system that players can come off the bench and seamlessly slip into, whereas Mourinho seems to be making it up as he goes along.
United fans thought they had got one over their local rivals when landing the signature of Alexis Sanchez, but who’s laughing now?
If you look at City or Liverpool they have a belief system and a distinct style, whereas there’s certainly no Man United way at the moment, other than an utterly depressing one.
Mourinho needs to depart Old Trafford sooner rather than later before the reputation of a oncegreat club is further damaged.
The pouting Paul Pogba should quickly follow him out the exit door with his suitcases overflowing with hype in tow.