MOURINHO A SPECIALIST IN VICTORY
Stick the big lad on to nod one in... OK, it’s not tactical genius but it sums up Jose’s practical approach to winning at all costs
IT hardly seems the hallmark of a managerial genius, it will not have the purists purring, it was not a work of footballing art.
Send on the big fella, send in a few high diagonal balls as the opposition retreat and there is every chance a winner will skid in off Marouane Fellaini’s magnificent head. Hey presto, yet hardly the work of a magician. No, but the work of someone peerless at finding results, who will probably finish the season with a points tally that would, in a normal season, contend for the title. Although you might watch some of Jose Mourinho’s football with a shrug, you cannot shrug at the practical outcomes. Should Manchester United win their remaining matches against Brighton, West Ham and Watford, they will finish with 86 points – good enough to win the title in four of the previous nine seasons.
Champions League football is secured for next term and second place – ahead of Liverpool and the celebrated Spurs – is almost certain.
No wonder he gets the hump now and again.
If United win the FA Cup on May 19, it will be impossible for even those most indifferent to his functional approach to deny Mourinho credit.
In the last two months, he has despatched Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal, not to mention Spurs in the FA Cup.
The odd aberration, against Sevilla and West Brom, count against him but he comes up with a way to chisel out victories.
This was a half-paced, half-hearted, half-baked, halfmeaningless pale imitation of a Manchester United-Arsenal game. Perhaps its rebranding as a significant stop on the Arsene Wenger farewell tour had an effect but you would like to think the competitive juices would soon course through the combatants. Not a bit. Manchester United take on Arsenal at Old Trafford and there is one booking. One booking. It used to be rougher in the tunnel pre-match. And no gold star for
guessing who obliged with the only yellow.
Yep, Granit Xhaka, the Arsenal captain who at least, unlike most, had an eventful afternoon.
Selling himself spectacularly badly in the build-up to United’s first goal, volleyed in by Paul Pogba after an Alexis Sanchez header returned to him via Hector Bellerin and a post, Xhaka might also have got a touch on Fellaini’s winner when challenging him in added time.
Yet he could claim an assist for the equaliser early in the second half.
He capitalised on a slight misunderstanding between Ander Herrera and Nemanja Matic before handing over to Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who decorated a very decent individual return to Old Trafford with a neat finish from some distance. It was deserved parity for a young Arsenal team who were relatively tidy but Wenger has not been able to celebrate a Premier League point, never mind a win, away from home for four months.
Instead, as Fellaini’s magnetic mop drew in and diverted Ashley Young’s cross, it was Mourinho who turned to his bench and stood, arms stretched wide in celebration.
Fellaini tugged at the Manchester United crest and Mourinho was positively salivating at the strengthening idea that the match-winner will, after all, sign a new contract.
His football might not be beautiful but he is useful and that is all that matters to Mourinho.
And while others get adoration for their beauty, as long as these type of results keep coming, Jose is not going to change.