Jose a man out of time
THE clock ticked down and the chant went up. It was at once mocking and absolutely genuine. The Koppites’ message to the Manchester United board was crystal clear: Don’t sack Mourinho.
Alas from the Reds’ perspective – and the perspective of every other Premier League club bar one – the United board, in their wisdom, chose not to follow to the advice of their greatest rivals’ fans.
A three-one defeat, which saw United played off the park and pummelled into submission on every meaningful metric, was the last straw and so, as of Tuesday morning, Jose Mourinho’s ill-fated tenure as manager of Manchester United is over.
It’s felt inevitable for quite some time. Mourniho seemed to be living the maxim that you should be careful what you wish for. The Portuguese long lusted after the Old Trafford hot-seat, casting envious glances over the years and seeking even to position himself as Alex Ferguson’s natural successor.
Fergie knew better than Mourniho did that he wouldn’t be a good fit for the club and pushed instead for his follow Scot, David Moyes, to replace him at Carrington and Old Trafford.
Of course that didn’t work out too well either – and more than one wag online has been quick to point out that Moyes would still be under his original contact right now if he’d remained in place – but Ferguson seemed to recognise what Mourniho didn’t: that Jose’s brand of football wouldn’t wash with the United faithful.
It was too prosaic, too utilitarian to chime with the most glamorous football club in the world, a club for whom swashbuckling and derring-do are as much a part of the fabric of the place as the red jerseys.
Mourinho sides don’t generally do swashbuckling – not any more at any rate – and so a sense of ennui and drift seemed to take hold. Even last season when United finished in second spot – their best finish since Ferguson called it a day – there was very little joy.
The snarling cynicism that marked the final four or five months of Mourniho’s Old Trafford reign was already very much in evidence. This once suave man, who entertained and beguiled with this charm had become a tiresome bore. Football cartoonist David Squires brilliantly and aptly depicted Mourinho as a disaffected emo teenager in his strips this past couple of months. Jose had become alienated and alienating.
A manager who once commanded the undying admiration and loyalty of his players, couldn’t go a week without throwing one or the other under the bus. Most notably Paul Pogba and Luke Shaw.
Whether or not Jose had lost the dressing room will become apparent in time – we’ll probably get the first behind the scenes account in the weekend papers as the players seek to pin the blame for the club’s current malaise on their former manager – but he’d certainly lost the goodwill of the dressing room. For Mouinho it’s becoming a worrying trend. He left both his previous roles on a similar bum note and, really, you’d have to wonder where he goes from here. What club would appoint him now? Or rather what club of the stature he aspires to would appoint him now?
He looks a man out of time and out of ideas. Perhaps the best thing for him to do would be to take a step back from management for at least a year and consider whether or not this is the life he wants for himself.
Maybe what he needs is to go back to his roots, find a small club and build them up. Even then the style of football he’s been employing is outdated. It could just be that time has passed him by.
The magic that made him the special one has well and truly disappeared.