Mean history may repeat
WHEN he wrote his infamous, six-page job application, Jose Mourinho wanted to stay at Manchester United for life. Six months in, his bosses were so pleased with him they gave him a new contract.
At various times since, he has spoken of being in “a marriage” and wanting “stability”. A year ago, he suggested he might stick around for 15 years. This week, bookies cut the odds on him being out before Xmas to 10-1 and 4-1 by the end of the season.
The famously itinerant Portuguese never has more than squatters’ rights. The nearest he got to PR was when he started a fourth season with Chelsea the first time round. But before the end of September he was gone.
He has had seven clubs since he began his career in 2002 and until last year, it was always the second season when the gods would smile and the galaxies didn’t stray out of position: at Real, at Inter and at Chelsea a second time.
To be fair, last season United improved from sixth to second and only a runaway Manchester City prevented him from maintaining what would have been an astonishing record.
Even though Pep Guardiola admits a City repeat is “impossible”, Mourinho knows it was no freak show – the same stellar crew are still around. And now he has another rival in the shape of a resurgent, big-spending Liverpool.
There is much to ponder then for the erstwhile Special One as he prepares for this third campaign at Old Trafford. For he is only too aware that just as surely as his second season saw things come together, his third was when they fell apart.
And already, in the midst of the now customary preamble to the United States, he has that grumpy face on - before a competitive ball is kicked. It is not so much that things are going wrong – more that nothing is going right.
After Fred led the initial trio, no signings of players he wants, no departures of those he doesn’t. Injuries. Lacklustre performances. A tour falling flat until Alexis Sanchez sparked to life. Absentees and the seemingly perennial (but it’s only two years) problem of Paul Pogba.
Winning the World Cup, the £89 million enigma looked a better (and more involved) player for France than he does for United. Yet Mourinho merely damned him with faint praise.
Claiming that he was “focused” in Russia because he had fewer distractions overlooks the fact that both Antonio Conte and Max Allegri managed to coax performances out of him at Juventus. And they didn’t play him out of position.
Mourinho may have missed a trick when he overlooked Pogba for the captaincy with no obvious candidate - it might just have galvanised him.
But by far the manager’s biggest bone of contention, in a part of the world that he loves, is the players who are not there: absentees both present and future.
Deprived of several first teamers by the World Cup and the failure – so far at least - to land the likes of Willian, Ivan Perisic, Javier Ribalta and Thiago Alcantara has left him in a sour mood.
So frustrated has he become that he even spoke of “giving up” on trying to add to his squad. And then there was his refusal to answer a polite question about United being title challengers!
No one asked such a question of Fergie – United were always title challengers. But you suspect the current boss had another reason for keeping mum. Whatever, it was too much for some United fans who have already called for his head.
His demeanour has not improved since Chelsea look like pipping him for the highly-rated Serbian midfielder, Sergei Milinkovic-Savic. Nor since Anthony Martial put paternity leave before his pre-season. The feeling is he won’t come back.
Few expect United to win the Premier League title or Champions League this season but they demand a stronger challenge and a more attacking brand of football. Last year as City and Liverpool fans feasted, United fans were treated to starvation rations.
And it is this betrayal of the heritage that is causing so many Devils to despair. When Fergie left, a fallow period was expected but it is five years and even some of the green shoots such as Axel Tuanzebe and Timothy FosuMensah find themselves transplanted elsewhere.
Where Louis van Gaal did not receive the memo about United’s attacking heritage, Mourinho is acutely aware of it yet still seems unable to turn on anything that might pass for style. And when he talks the way he did this week, you begin to wonder.
In underlining his point about absentees – City and Spurs are even worse off than United – he appeared jealous of two clubs that United fans are unaccustomed to being compared with – Leicester and Brighton – their first two opponents.
With just three players between them at the World Cup, both have had longer pre-seasons. It came across as if he was getting his excuses in early. Fergie would never have said such things.
If he does manage to get in a couple of A-listers, he should have a squad capable of a decent challenge. But if he falls short again and does not show any more attacking intent, history will surely repeat itself.