Mourinho is pushing his cluck now

I CAN’T quite figure out whether or not Jose Mourinho is playing a game of chicken with Manchester United’s players and board.

Is he is telling the players, ’I’m going to be here for the longer term and you’d better do it my way or you’ll be out of the door’ or is this the beginning of the end for him at Old Trafford?

It could quite easily be the latter because he’s not a manager who hangs around too long — two years at Inter, three at Real Madrid, and then two at Chelsea second time around.

He has been publicly critical of his players and I’d say they will hold that against him if he’s not saying exactly the same to them in private.

My old Aston Villa manager John Gregory would never walk down a corridor and say, ‘Can I have a word?’ but he would go on Sky Sports News and have a go at me.

I’d be gutted and then I’d be angry that he hadn’t had the cojones to say it to my face. I don’t think Mourinho (above) is like that. There is no shortage of evidence from the past to suggest that the Old Trafford chief is a manager who will front up his players.

So I wonder if he is simply asking his players if they are with him, a bit like Pep Guardiola did at Manchester City last season.

Except Guardiola did it in a much more diplomatic way.

IN Collymore’s crystal ball I’m seeing a ChelseaTottenham FA Cup final with the Blues coming out on top.

And when they do, I’d love to see Antonio Conte go and plonk the famous old trophy on Roman Abramovich’s desk and say, ‘This is a madhouse and you’re all a bunch of [expletive deleted]. So ciao bello, I’m off back to the Italian national team or Juventus’.