Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
If Shaw is looking for light at end of the United tunnel, classless Jose didn’t rate Salah or De Bruyne either
THROUGHOUT a dull first half, the wideman was being constantly barked at by his boss Jose Mourinho.
At half-time he tore a strip off him in the home dressing-room, reportedly ordering him to “return as a footballer” in time for next season, then subbed him, leaving the young player confused, embarrassed and crestfallen.
No, it wasn’t Luke Shaw during Manchester United’s game against Brighton last Saturday, but Mo Salah (above) playing for Chelsea in May 2014 at Norwich City.
The near 22-year-old only started one more league game under Mourinho and was shown the door eight months later.
If Shaw, 22, is searching for light at the end of the dark tunnel he finds himself trapped in, then Salah might offer some. After all, he hasn’t done badly since. Neither has Kevin De Bruyne (above, right), another 22-year-old cast adrift by Mourinho because he couldn’t instantly turn his promise into proven maturity.
He and Salah are now favourites for Footballer of the Year, while the man who tossed them aside claims his United team is bereft of “personality, class and desire”. Who’s fault is that? When United fell 12 points behind Manchester City in December, Mourinho claimed the £300million he’d spent in two summers at Old Trafford was not enough to be competitive.
He then persuaded his board to sign Alexis Sanchez in a deal that could eventually cost £180m because the 29-year-old Chilean brings “maturity and class”.
Two months on, that personality, class and desire Mourinho seeks is still absent. Mention that ‘The Special
One’ joined
United in the same month
Pep Guardiola went to City and his apologists will say he inherited a worse squad. He did. Yet Guardiola has massively improved City, not just by spending, but by improving individuals like Raheem Sterling, who has scored 20 goals so far this season, double what he scored last term in fewer games. Would Mourinho have coached that improvement out of him? Or demanded an instant upgrade last summer because he didn’t have the time to wait for the 22-yearold to mature?
That’s what he did with Salah. He didn’t trust him defensively, so loaned him to Fiorentina as part of a £27m deal to bring in Juan Cuadrado, who also made little impact under Mourinho and was soon discarded. Only to win two Serie A titles with Juventus. Salah meanwhile flourished, especially under Luciano Spalletti at Roma who worked on his defensive game, nurtured and praised him.
Before one game, Spalletti showed the assembled media a clip of Salah from the previous match against Palermo, sprinting the length of the pitch to defend, after scoring twice, as Roma led 4-0. “He has fantastic, brilliant habits. If every player applied the same level, we’ll once again have a team with a united core,” said Spalletti.
Contrast that with how Shaw is being treated by Mourinho and how Salah was at Chelsea. The modest Egyptian has said little about his time under him other than, “We didn’t talk much”. The lack of interest says it all.
The truth is, Mourinho is hardly ever interested in coaching raw talent to the next level. He believes that is someone else’s job and his is to use a rich club’s money to buy players who are the finished product.
Like a CEO who sees their company’s annual results as the only figures that matter as it determines their performance and bonus, his is a short-term mentality based around how he will be perceived.
With players, it’s about how good they can make him look in that moment. He rarely cares about polishing a gem the club has invested millions in or persisting with a prospect who is having a bad patch, in the belief it will pay off down the line.
If this United side is lacking in personality, class and desire might it be because its manager lacks two of those traits and only has a desire for self-glorification?