It’s all gone Ron for boss

target Diego Godin.

Mourinho is still furious that Executive Vice-chairman Ed Woodward refused to splash the cash on at least one new centre-back after successive defeats to Brighton and Tottenham.

Especially when Woodward was ready to spend big to bring back five-time Ballon D’OR winner Ronaldo to Old Trafford at the age of 33.

Ronaldo eventually moved to Juventus – and will now make an emotional return to Manchester in October after United drew the Italian giants in the Champions League.

But Mourinho is still angry that his employers refused to invest more than £75million on Brazilian midfielder Fred, teenage defender Diogo Dalot and third-choice keeper Lee Grant when he had urged them to spend on defenders, such as Leicester City’s Harry Maguire (right).

Mourinho admitted: “I said in the summer what would happen, before the competition started.

“I knew this was going to be difficult because I also knew that last season was very difficult.

“The teams that are really, really good offensively are the teams that are very, very solid from the back.

“Teams that have the offensive mentality are also ultra-confident defensively.

“Against Spurs, we were really positive and really strong and I think a very good opponent felt they were really in trouble. But two defensive mistakes in five minutes lost the game for us.

“It’s a process and it’s a process that has risks – especially if you make the defensive mistakes that breaks that dynamic.

“Two defeats are two defeats. We still have 35 matches to play. But our realistic target now is to win on Sunday. After that, it will be to win against Watford.”

United haven’t lost three of their opening four games since 1986 – when Ron Atkinson was sacked and replaced by Sir Alex Ferguson.

A difficult week was made worse when they were given a tough Champions League group, which includes Valencia and BSC Young Boys as well as Ronaldo’s big-spending Juventus.