Pep and his team have turned Jose into the Moaning One

JOSE Mourinho should make a New Year resolution – smile!

The United boss is fast losing his reputation as the Special One and is becoming the Moaning One – and I put the blame on runaway Premier League leaders City.

Pep Guardiola’s Blues have raised the bar to an extraordinary level and that has put pressure on Mourinho as well as all the other top managers.

Mourinho needs to accept that and rather than blame everyone and everything get on with his job of building a much more consistent winning team.

I couldn’t believe his public spat with Paul Scholes, who is perfectly entitled to his viewpoint that Paul Pogba can do more against teams such as Southampton at home.

What Mourinho does very cleverly is deflect the spotlight away from his own, and his team’s shortcomings.

One bright light for United has been the emergence of Jesse Lingard. He’s 25 now and this is his time. He’s got ten goals already this season and I hope Mourinho plays him against Derby in the FA Cup on tomorrow night.

I don’t mind admitting I was wrong about Lingard like I was about Raheem Sterling at City. And if these two can avoid injury and carry on their excellent form during the second half of the season you never know, we might surprise a few at the World Cup in Russia.

United are of course odds on to beat Derby at the first time of asking with man of the moment Lingard 5/1 with Betfred to score first and his United pal Marcus Rashford – another certainty for the plane for Russia – at 3/1 to open the scoring. Betfred have United 6/1 second favourites to win the FA Cup behind 4/1 City who host Burnley in the same round at the Etihad on Saturday.

Chelsea are also 6/1 to lift the cup with Tottenham 7/1, Liverpool 9/1, Arsenal 10/1 and Everton 28/1.