Game face /Boos at Old Trafford as Mourinho’s men flop again
● Lacklustre Old Trafford side fail to fire again in stalemate with Spanish visitors
0 Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho shows his feelings during last night’s lethargic 0-0 Champions League draw with Valencia.
Jose Mourinho’s slow ball revolution plods on. No goals, no imagination, no direction, no idea, no fun, really. The only sense of speed at Old Trafford these days is the rate at which the modern game seems to be passing United by.
Thus has the Theatre of Dreams acquired an ironic as well as a dysfunctional quality. David Beckham and Ryan Giggs, those emblematic wide men who set pulses ablaze in the Alex Ferguson era, looked like old men in the stands, aged by the experience of watching.
Yes there was a degree of increased frenzy as the second half wore on but none of it convincing. The dreary pattern is established. Out-played and out-coached by Wolves and Derby at home, thrashed by West Ham away, this was an opportunity to say enough.
Valencia, with only one win in seven, are not even a middling La Liga outfit. Ten-man Juventus saw them off in the opening group game with Cristiano Ronaldo weeping in the showers. Yet here they were enjoying as much of the ball as the home team and looking lively with it.
United’s house of dysfunction has become about all things but the football. Scrutiny falls on Mourinho as much as his players. He has become the story, a sure sign that it’ s all going belly upon the pitch. He was at it again in his programme notes, turning a harmless fan tome into a political pamphlet.
Mourinho’s obsession with getting his digs in first led him into sermonsing his welcome, laying out his moral code in a series of golden rules. He talked about ‘dignity’, a quality that he believes is rooted in the desire to “fight, work, compete, win duels, be humble”.
By following these simple virtues players enter the blessed state of ‘exhaustion’, “because of the hard work they have given for the club, for the fans and for each other”. It follows, he said, that for this type of individual “the team is always more important than the individual, and the crest on the chest is more important than the name on the back of the shirt”.
It goes without saying that Mourinho identifies with the above. “This is me. This is how I work. This is what I ask of my team, my group, my club,” signed, Saint Jose of The Lowry. There might be hope for him and United were this not such an obvious paradox.
What United need most of all was a restatement of their footballing values, not another eruption of political jousting. Give the fans something they want to see then all the other stuff falls away. Frankly most punters couldn’t give a toss who patrols the technical area. They would cheer for Boris Johnson if the football was faithful to the message on the bus.
At some point this club is
going to remember who it is and what it stands for. The players are good enough, or at least better than performances suggest. What the team lacks is cohesion and authority, elements that stem from leadership and confidence.
With the relations with the coach in a parlous state, there is a brittle atmosphere on the pitch. The team is tentative in possession, trying too hard for the most part. Mind you, composure comes from confidence and there is precious little of that commodity at Old Trafford just now.
Without the ball United are locked in a Mourinho time warp, falling back into banks
of four when the modern way of winning teams is to press high and pressure the opposition into mistakes in their own half. The same lack of composure that sees them charging about like headless chickens up front invites panic at the back.
After the first flush of enthusiasm a familiar pattern settles, the opposition come into the game and the crowd falls silent. Well that bit that didn’t contain visitors from Valencia. United’s best came from Marcus Rashford, and that was either speculative from distance since United have forgotten how to work an opening in the box, or aerial, the
result of a hopeful cross. It is two months since United last won at Old Trafford, and that a fortunate victory in the opening game of the season against Leicester. They are no further forward than the day David Moyes was axed. They might even have gone backwards. At some point, someone, you imagine, will take responsibility and act.