JOSE HEADING TO MUNICH?

Mourinho is bookmakers’ favourite as Kovac’s successor at Bayern

EXPERIENCE tells us that Jose Mourinho is a master at saying something without actually saying it.

Take his coy, calculated response when asked back in April whether he would accept an offer from Bayern Munich to return to management.

“I respect Niko Kovac as I respect many of my colleagues, so I cannot answer this,” Mourinho said. “I can only say that Bayern are giant club.”

Then, two minutes later... “If I say yes, everyone will say Jose wants to go to the Bundesliga so I cannot say yes.

“I can only say I want to win my ninth league title and third Champions League title.”

If this sounds similar to the way Mourinho fluttered his eyelashes at Manchester United — right down to admitting he stayed in on Friday nights to watch MUTV — then it is.

The current state of play is that Mourinho remains unemployed nearly a year on from his Old Trafford sacking and that, after this weekend, Bayern are searching for a new manager. How convenient.

Niko Kovac was given the elbow by the reigning German champions on Sunday night in the wake of Saturday’s disastrous 5-1 loss at Eintracht Frankfurt.

The decision of match referee Markus Schmidt to upgrade Jerome Boateng’s ninth-minute yellow card to a red after consulting the VAR monitor, sparking the collapse to Bayern’s heaviest defeat in over a decade, proved the final nail for Kovac, who’d been under pressure for months.

So attention now turns to Kovac’s successor and it isn’t surprising given the strength of his CV and character that Mourinho is the bookmakers’ favourite to come in.

There’s no question Bayern represent an attractive proposition for a manager who prides himself on having won league titles in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain. Germany would be the natural next step.

There would be also be the personal incentive to lead Bayern to Champions League glory, something his great rival Pep Guardiola failed to do during his three seasons in Bavaria.

And then there’s the fact Mourinho could take over with Bayern still in a relatively strong position this season and with silverware still very likely.

Despite Saturday’s defeat, they sit fourth in the Bundesliga table just four points off the early season pace-setters Borussia Monchengladbach.

Bayern remain favourites to win an eighth consecutive title and with good reason. Whoever is at the helm, it’s in the club’s DNA to win trophies and there hasn’t been an outstanding team in the league so far.

They’re still in the German Cup and a win over Olympiakos in the Champions League tomorrow would see them safely through to the knockout stages.

Mourinho could come in during the international fortnight with his first match against struggling Fortuna Dusseldorf and European worries put to one side until well after Christmas.

A proven winner, Mourinho would offer the club a short-term lift and the season would likely finish with at least one piece of silverware.

The win-at-all-costs mentality he would instil in the dressing room would certainly suit Bayern, where anything less than winning the title by 20 points is considered a failure.

Another proven winner is Massimiliano Allegri, who said he wanted to take a sabbatical after leaving Juventus last summer but could be persuaded to cut that short if Bayern came knocking.

Another possibility would be a return for Erik ten Hag, the Ajax manager, who formerly coached Bayern’s second team during Guardiola’s spell with the club.

Thomas Tuchel, Mauricio Pochettino and Julian Nagelsmann, the managers of Paris Saint-Germain, Tottenham and RB Leipzig, are also in the running.