Mourinho ignoring doomsday scenario
The week will belong, as the season has, to Manchester City, but to listen to at least one of the managers in action at Old Trafford, the future may not be quite so clear-cut.
With every passing week, Jose Mourinho’s desperate attempts at self-justification and self-promotion have grown with increasingly fervid intensity, culminating in the United manager castigating Luke Shaw and the bulk of his first-team squad following the recent FA Cup win over Brighton.
There was more of the same from Mourinho on Saturday after a perfunctory 2-0 defeat of Swansea City, managed by his countryman and close friend Carlos Carvalhal, although events elsewhere would have dominated most United supporters’ thoughts.
City’s win at Everton set up the doomsday scenario for them, a Manchester derby at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday evening in which victory for Pep Guardiola’s side will make the league title a statistical certainty.
The prospect of such a meeting may have preoccupied United supporters for some weeks now, but to listen to Mourinho at least, it is something the Portuguese manager has not yet contemplated.
“When is that? Next week? I’m not thinking yet about it,” he claimed.
“Manchester City is not important for me, what is important for me is that, since the moment we left the first position and went to second, we stayed there for the whole of the season.
“We deserve to finish second in spite of what you can say, the criticism you make. You say third, fourth, fifth, sixth are better than us, but they are not because we have more points than them.
“We are going to fight in every match. Seven matches to go, we are going to fight to finish second.
“I think we have 10 more points than last season, something like that. We have more goals scored, we have less goals conceded, we finish sixth, we’re going to try to finish second, so the season is not as bad as you try to make it.”
Despite his crude attempts to downplay the occasion, Mourinho’s approach to his latest meeting with his old sparring partner, Guardiola, will be intriguing.
United were scintillating for the first half against Swansea, scoring goals from Romelu Lukaku – his 100th in the Premier League at the age of just 24 – and Alexis Sanchez, both set up by Jesse Lingard, in a display which begged the question, do United approach the City game as they did this – quick, efficient and ruthless in attack, constantly on the front foot?
Or does Mourinho revert to, what has become type, in recent years at least?
The goalless draw at Anfield earlier this season was, arguably, the nadir of Mourinho’s bus-parking career, yet it is hard to imagine that he will not be tempted to do likewise against City.
Carvalhal, predictably perhaps, believes United’s future is in safe hands.
“His past speaks for itself. At Porto, nobody expected him to win the Champions League, but he won it,” said Carvalhal.
“After he moved to Chelsea, they hadn’t won the league for 30 years or something, and he was champion there. Go to Inter Milan, no championship for 15 years, and he wins everything there.
“Go to Real Madrid to play against the best team of the century – and you know everyone said it was impossible to beat Barcelona – and he was champion in Madrid.
“He came here. Manchester United have gone a little down in recent years. It’s the reality, they are not winning trophies, but the reality is that in England it’s harder to make all the steps in one season.
“But on this path he’s doing better than in the recent past. He’s preparing for the future to do better and try to make the jump to be champions.”