If Jose wants out, he’d attack fans

MAYBE Jose Mourinho is as tactically laborious as his critics claim. For if he is looking for a way out of Manchester United, he is going the long way about it. Why fall out with five, 10, even 20 people, when he could alienate himself from over 75,000 in a sentence or two? Lose the fans. If Mourinho’s strategy is to claim a pay-off and go, there is no surer route than getting Old Trafford to turn. Yet he goes out of his way to keep the Stretford End happy. Mourinho (right) may be in conflict with the dressing room, he may be unhappy with Ed Woodward’s dealings in the transfer market, but he works hard to make friends with the paying customers. Fair enough — the fans haven’t done anything wrong, but usually when Mourinho goes to the dark side, it is as if he operates a scorched earth policy. Ambulance services, the local police force, referees, medics — everyone is fair game. And he’s a smart guy, so he would know the consequences of a stadium in uproar against him. If his aim was to be paid off, that would be a very easy route to go. So this isn’t, as is often claimed about Mourinho, some grand Machiavellian scheme. He is not orchestrating confrontation for its own sake, but because he feels frustrated with the depth of his squad and the performances of some important players. Too much is read into Mourinho’s moods and mutterings. He is always presumed to have a cunning plan. In reality, he is an old-fashioned hot-head who at times cannot resist sounding off. It is the most unsophisticated response, really. He can’t hold back, even though he knows he should — and Manchester United have never empowered their media department to act as anything more than mute chaperones. They walk him in, they shut it down, they walk him out. It never seems as if there is a calculated attempt to manage the situation. Mourinho is left on his own to the extent it is now believed he is actively trying to get the sack. That is a failing on his part, but it is a bigger failing on theirs, to let it get this far. Paul Scholes claimed Mourinho was embarrassing the club with his outspokenness — but they are allowing this to happen, and that is worse.