Mourinho is turning United into dinosaurs
Traditions betrayed as team become pale imitation of their former selves
The negativity of Jose Mourinho has seeped deep into the fabric of Manchester United. It has turned them into a team who went into the FA Cup final intent not on expressing themselves but on stopping Chelsea’s best player, Eden Hazard. It failed dismally.
And when the game was over and the final whistle had sounded the death knell for United’s last hope of winning a trophy this season, there was not even consolation for United’s loyal supporters in the fact that their side had been true to their traditions.
Sure, they were the better side in the second-half but they had been so comprehensively outplayed in the first-half that the advantage had been lost and they had no choice but to chase the game. Even then, their approach play was, for the most part, laboured and predictable. Their technique, too, was woeful. Compared to Manchester City, United look as though they play the game in clogs.
The truth is hard to ignore when you watch Mourinho’s United in matches like this: under him, they are becoming the dinosaurs of English football’s elite. Where City and Liverpool thrill the neutrals, United are a pale, cautious imitation of the team they once were.
They cannot even console themselves that they are good to watch. It is not just that they are mediocre. They are dull. For a club of their size, a club that has spent nearly half a billion pounds on players under this manager, to fail to win a trophy asks a multitude of worrying questions about their direction.
Mourinho will still be at Old Trafford next season but elite teams have parted ways with managers after better seasons than his. Unit
ed’s league position improved considerably and that will save him but this performance, along with many others of a similar ilk, suggested that progress is stalling.
He is fortunate that he is not under greater pressure already but for seasoned Mourinho-watchers, there are already signs of the implosion that always comes. His press conference last night was clipped m and confrontational but it also featured scarcely disguised digs at Romelu Lukaku because he did not feel able to start the game.
Lukaku is not the first player Mourinho has taken public issue with. Among the signs of United’s malaise, the performance of England star Marcus Rashford was a symbol of the uncertainty Mourinho’s ego is sowing. Rashford was one of the brightest stars in the firmament when Mourinho arrived at the club but his progress, too, has stalled under him. Many warned that Mourinho, with his suspicion of youth, would ruin him and if that is an exaggeration, Rashford, who is still only 20, looked like a player in the first-half yesterday who has had much of his youthful joy knocked out of him. Soon, perhaps, we may be adding him to Mo Salah and Kevin de
Bruyne in the list of promising players Mourinho has alienated and who have gone on to achieve great success elsewhere. At least England manager Gareth Southgate believes in Rashford and he will have to breathe confidence back into him ahead of the World Cup. Sometimes, for England players, returning to their club from international duty has been a sanctuary. For Rashford, it may be the other way round.
Mourinho was witheringly critical of Rashford after his performance forman for United in the defeat against Brighton this month. Without mentioning him by name, n he suggested the public clamour for him to play more games was misplaced .‘ You have the answer now when w you ask “why always alw Lukaku?”’
Mourinho Mou said. ‘We are probably probab not as good as people think we are individually. It was not good enough. The players that replaced others did not perform at a good level and when individuals do that it is difficult for the team to play well. Maybe now you will not ask me why A, Band C do not play so much.’
Many found Mourinho’s readiness to criticise a young player unfortunate and it added to the debate about his default tendency to mistrust youth. Rashford made 35
appearances in the Premier League this season but fewer than half were starts. Mourinho’s attitude drew a stinging rebuke last week from BBC analyst Jermaine Jenas.
‘I found what he did after that Brighton game disgusting,’ Jenas said. ‘When you are managing a young player like Marcus Rashford, the thing that I really didn’t like about it was for him to come out as publicly as he did at that time. The comments about Lukaku were a direct shot at Rashford. It was almost like he enjoyed the failure of Rashford. It gave him the opportunity to say “shut up, I am right and you’re wrong” and that is not a point you should be using on a young player.’
When it became obvious that Lukaku had not recovered from injury sufficiently to start the game yesterday and that Rashford would play instead, many expected him to play down the flank and Alexis Sanchez to start as the central striker but it was the Englishman who played down the middle.
In the early stages, he was starved of service and dropped deeper and deeper to try to get the ball. He struggled to get any kind of foothold in the match. He looked desperately short of confidence.
One ambitious attempted pass towards Antonio Valencia on the right was dreadfully mishit and dribbled straight to Marcos Alonso. Ten minutes later, after Hazard had put Chelsea ahead from the spot, Rashford rolled a short pass to Valencia only to find that he had already set off down the wing. The ball rolled slowly into touch.
Things got worse When Rashford took a free kick in a dangerous position, he drilled it low straight into the wall. In the last seconds before the interval, a half chance fell to him but he could only sidefoot it tamely against a defender. When the half-time whistle blew, Rashford hung his head. He looked as bemused as anybody by his own performance.
But when United finally sprung into life in the second-half, Rashford played his part, hitting a stinging shot that Thibaut Courtois could only beat out awkwardly. Some of his belief came flooding back. He found his range with his free kicks, too, curling in a ball that Phil Jones headed goalwards and Courtois saved before Sanchez rammed it home from an offside position. Now Rashford was starting to show how influential he could be.
With United dominant, he sprinted onto a through ball and found himself one-one with Courtois. This was his moment. He tried to lift the ball over him but hit it just too close to the goalkeeper, who blocked it with his body.
When he looked to the bench, Rashford saw that his number was up. Mourinho brought Lukaku on and Rashford’s afternoon was over. His summer, though, is just beginning. Playing for a manager who rates him is likely to come as a blessed relief.