Manager has to make it work at Old Trafford – he has nowhere else to go

Mourinho has always thrived on being an outsider and was therefore at his best at Porto and Chelsea, not mainstream clubs from Europe’s elite but ambitious and aggressive interlopers whom he could lead on a wave of intensity and constant demands for “respect”. They were new boys.

At United, it is different. He is at an establishment club, a rich club with a rich background and one where he is not trying to create history but replicate it. Stylistically, it has never been a good fit, but, if it does not work, he is in danger of pushing himself out of football.

Mourinho cuts an isolated figure, particularly since his long-term assistant Rui Faria quit, and that isolation looked ever more apparent as he stood in the vast technical area inside the London Stadium as United lost so miserably to West Ham on Saturday.

Afterwards, Mourinho lashed out again at his squad. This time it was Anthony Martial’s turn to be criticised, but there has been a constant stream of targets, with Alexis Sanchez angered at being dropped from the match-day squad despite travelling to London, and Paul Pogba saying to reporters asking for his thoughts: “You want me dead?”

It is a crucial week for United, with two home games – tonight’s Champions League tie against Valencia and Saturday evening’s Premier League match against Newcastle, led by Mourinho’s old rival Rafael Benitez – before the

The conditions at the club are not as bad as the Portuguese appears to believe they are

international break. There are some at United who believe it has already gone beyond the point of no return.

It is hard to argue against that, given the patterns of behaviour. Mourinho signed a new contract this year, which runs to June 2020, and there may be a belief that the scale of the pay-off he would be due, thought to be around

£15 million, will insulate him against the sack. But not if results continue to deteriorate.

In the argument to dismiss United as dysfunctional, the obvious has been overlooked. They are not that bad. Or rather, crucially, the conditions at the club are not as bad as Mourinho appears to believe they are. There are structural and organisational problems – if ever a club were crying out for a director of football, they are – but United are still not the sum of their expensive parts. Financial arguments, like statistics, can be massaged either way, but United do have the highest wage bill in the Premier League by some distance, vast transfer fees have been paid and, although Mourinho did not get what he wanted last summer, he has been backed.

He has the best goalkeeper in the top flight – and possibly the world – in David de Gea. He has two centre-halves in Eric Bailly and Victor Lindelof. who he wanted, he has the holding midfielder he asked for in Nemanja Matic, he has the league’s most expensive player in World Cup winner Pogba, he has Sanchez, who was secured after United outbid Manchester City, and he has Romelu Lukaku, a proven Premier League striker and Belgium’s record goalscorer.

United have also just spent £52 million on midfielder Fred.

Maybe they are not good enough. But they are better than this.

A line was drawn in the summer with the refusal to buy another centre-half and although that was a big moment, it happens at every club, no matter the power of the manager or the resources. It is argued that at City Pep Guardiola just buys who he wants and then gets rid of them, but that is not the case. Goalkeeper Claudio Bravo was a mistake but he is still at City as Ederson’s understudy. Nolito came and went, and Danilo does not play regularly, but that is about it.

No manager, and possibly nobody in football, polarises opinion quite like Mourinho. It is all or nothing, and it is wearing. It is spiralling again but someone needs to take the heat out of this situation if he is to carry on.

That someone, ultimately, has to be Mourinho. He really has no one else to blame and probably nowhere else to go.