Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
While United get their skates on, Mourinho’s prospects are on the SLIDE
IT’S hard to gauge what would have hurt Jose Mourinho most this week.
That hard, cold fall on to his jacksy, as he guest-started an icehockey game in Russia, or the £1.7million fine for tax fraud.
But I’m guessing neither damaged him as much as the noises coming from Manchester United after they chalked up nine wins in 10 games since his departure.
When Ander Herrera was asked about new boss, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, he said: “We’re very happy with him. Everyone feels free.”
Romelu Lukaku said of life under the Norwegian, who is not even starting him: “It’s different, a lot more positive. People are smiling, enjoying it.”
And when Solskjaer was asked about his team’s identity, he said. “We want to take risks. We want to go for the second, the third and the fourth goal because that’s just how we do things at Manchester United. If you can’t handle that then you are at the wrong club.”
No Siberian tumble or Spanish court ruling could have cut as deep. Because everyone with a smattering of knowledge about United knows it’s true.
Garth Crooks this week said there were certain players at Old Trafford he doesn’t recognise, asking, “What is Solskjaer feeding these boys?” Self-belief and optimism is the answer. And it tastes a hell of a lot better than the diet of self-doubt and pessimism they were fed under Mourinho.
Look at the link-up between Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford for Sunday’s goal against Leicester. For four months under Mourinho this season, those two managed six goals and eight assists between them. Since Solskjaer made them central to his plans six weeks ago, they have scored 12 goals and seven assists.
The longer these United players keep winning the closer they come to writing Mourinho’s epitaph as a bigclub manager. The more they play with such freedom the more they confirm the suspicion his time has passed moulding young, elite players into title-winners.
It might not be long before people look at United’s post-mourinho renaissance, recall a similar one at Chelsea in his final season there and ask what football fans would now want to see him in charge?
In 2015-16 Chelsea averaged 0.94 points before his December sacking and 1.59 afterwards under Guus Hiddink. This year United took 1.53 points a game before his December dismissal which has shot up to 2.75 points under Solskjaer. Make that one thousand per cent in terms of style.
Whereas previously, fans, including United’s, were salivating at the prospect of hiring the serial winner, who would now be desperate to welcome him, his massive salary, even bigger ego and the inevitable third season fall-out? OK, apart from Paris Saint-germain.
It may not continue, and it’s certainly not welcomed outside Old Trafford, but Solskjaer and his players have reminded us football is much more than a defensive, joy-sapping pursuit of a point or three, with a calculated cup run. That young men in football kits just want to go out and show how good they are.
It was the ethos the modern United was built on under Matt Busby, what his fellow Scots Tommy Docherty and Alex Ferguson grasped, and what Solskjaer now realises is his one route to getting the job permanently.
Football should be about raising the pulse and the spirits and putting a smile on the faces of those who watch. As it says below the statue of arguably the most-adored British manager, Bill Shankly: “He made the people happy.”
Is Mourinho, who cuts an increasingly sour and bitter figure the longer he stays in management, capable of ever doing that again?