JOSE ADDS TO UNITED GLOOM
Kevin Kilbane column
PREMIER LEAGUE, Championship, La Liga, League of Ireland, junior soccer leagues, it doesn’t matter what level, the one guarantee about every player, fan and manager is that they will be optimistic about the new season.
And if you are the manager of Manchester United, the least the supporters expect is to hear is that you are going to win the Premier League, not give up before a ball is even kicked.
Unless you are Jose Mourinho. Then you can spend the whole summer moaning and dragging everyone at the club down with you. It was bad enough last season but it looks like his mood is even worse now.
Yes, United did need to sign four or five players in the close season, but given the squad he has already assembled, and the club’s budget, he had to send out a more positive message in the build-up to Friday’s win over Leicester City.
The season opener was a good win for United and there was certainly plenty for the manager to be positive about, particularly in some of the individual performances. But he still managed to moan in his post-match interview.
Eric Bailly played very well and it was great to see Luke Shaw score his first senior goal and look so positive throughout the game. He has been through the mill under Mourinho and seeing his reaction in front of the fans was a lovely start to the new season.
Paul Pogba was named captain, started well and showed some lovely touches at times but he still slowed the game down too much.
New £60m signing Fred has plenty of energy but played a little conservatively, passing sideways and back to the defence, but that was understandable in his United debut. Supporters will be expecting more from him as the season progresses.
The lack of signings is down to the recruitment team. Manchester United have built themselves on Mourinho being able to attract the best players in the world. But the club are not as attractive as they once were because of him.
In this window, Jerome Boateng is an excellent example of a world class player who couldn’t see the appeal of joining Manchester United and turned down a £40 million move to stay at Bayern Munich, for now.
Two of their targets, Diego Godin and Antoine Griezmann have now signed new deals at Atletico Madrid. That doesn’t fit with the Manchester United of old. There is no way United would be used by agents as leverage but, if that has happened here, perhaps that shows how far they have fallen in recent years. Pogba wants to join Barcelona. What does that tell you?
United’s dealings during the summer have been a mess and it is not helped by the negativity from the manager who already seems to have surrendered the title. Mourinho has been an incredible coach and master tactician in the Premier League era.
He has always given off that image of invincibility and United should be the perfect arena for him because, under Alex Ferguson, there was that same feeling. But there was always real positivity too.
That is not the Mourinho message I have been getting over the last couple of months, if not years.
Ferguson loved to play on that ‘us against the world’ mentality. But with this manager, it’s not United against the world, it’s the world against Mourinho.
The downcast rhetoric he repeated throughout pre-season was always primarily about him, rather than the whole club. That is what sets him apart and perhaps alienates him and, unlike other managers, that brings out his winning mentality.
But teams are playing different brands of football now where they hurt the opposition and Mourinho has never been able to play that way.
Despite the win on Friday, this looks like it is not going to end well. If United can’t challenge, which he seems to expect and accept, he has made his excuses already.
This is his third year at Old Trafford and he has never stayed beyond three seasons in any job. He has always made a huge impact in his first year, and certainly by his second. They are in a rut and in a similar position to Liverpool in the period after they last won the title in 1990. It is now five years since Ferguson won it and United are as far away as they have ever been since he left. Who knows if they will have to wait as long as Liverpool to win the league again.