Mourinho plays dangerous game by clouding United in negativity
Manchester United are League Cup winners and 6-4 Europa League favourites. They are the masters of the second tier, and are six points off fourth position in the Premier League with two games in hand on Liverpool. None of this brings much joy to Jose Mourinho.
Counting the bets at Cheltenham would be quicker than listing all Mourinho’s complaints this week. They arrived in such a blizzard that it would be hard even picking out a top 10. The simplest of them is that United ought not to be kicking off at Middlesbrough at 12 o’clock tomorrow after playing Chelsea in the FA Cup on Monday night and Rostov in the Europa League on Thursday. “At least let us sleep a little bit on Sunday,” Mourinho said, sounding like a student ordered to wash the family car by 10am after a big night out.
Simply, Mourinho has been in a filthy mood all week. Not interesting, by itself, unless you ask what it says about him and United. Or, more specifically, what it says about his view of United after an FA Cup exit and a workmanlike Europa League win.
The most serious of his lamentations was delivered to Gary Lineker on the BBC. “I found a sad club when I arrived here,” he said, and went on to bemoan the sales of Ángel Di María, Danny Welbeck, and Javier Hernández.
There is a reasonable point in there, but Mourinho’s penchant for melodrama often pushes him into overstatement. Asked whether he could restore United’s glory days, he said: “Forget it. It is not possible. Don’t try to go 10, 20 years ago because it’s not possible.”
Ten, 20 years ago, Sir Alex Ferguson would never have spoken like this. With a point to make about transfers, he would have avoided this level of negativity. One of his phobias was giving easy hits to those looking for signs of stress. Which is why he would rub his face before press conferences and project an air of authority.
This is not Mourinho’s style, which is fair enough. But it seems an odd way to pursue the ultimate objective. For three years, United’s transfer policy has been chaotic, from the overspend on Paul Pogba to the recruitment of too many average (by United’s standards) players.
A strong personal impression is that Mourinho was shocked by how little he had to work with when he arrived last summer. The counter-argument, often heard, is that United have spent hundreds of millions on players since Ferguson retired. But a £150million splurge of the sort they tried last summer cannot walk on to a pitch and correct three years’ worth of errors.
Mourinho seems to be saying that this is the best he can do with this squad. This is: 1, probably correct; and 2, a dangerous game, because he was hired to improve this United team, not constantly diagnose faults or spread negativity. We ought to go through his gripes. Monday’s return to Stamford Bridge was no happy homecoming as United lost Ander Herrera to a red card, Mourinho traded barbs with some Chelsea fans who called him “Judas” and his team went out of the FA Cup. “Play on Monday with 10 men, enjoying five hours on the M6 coming back to Manchester,” he objected. But he was only just warming up. The Rostov game annoyed him so much he used a banana to make a point about his team’s depleted energy levels. “For some it was a funny situation, the banana story. I don’t think it’s a funny situation,” he said. “When I watch marathons and people go to their limit, I don’t think it is funny, and I don’t think it’s funny some of my players in six weeks play 11 matches.” Surely that was it? No chance. Then he was accusing the authorities of “not giving a s--about English teams in European competition” with their crazy scheduling. Mourinho is entitled to be a middle-age grump, but United fans must wish he would display a bit more positivity in the course of the reconstruction. They will not sympathise with grumbles about motorways and alarm calls.