Mourinho used to be a manager of action. Now he doesn’t even know his best team . . .

JOSE MOURINHO was revisiting his decision around Paul Pogba and the captaincy. ‘After weeks of analysing and changing opinions with my coaching staff, we decided Paul is just a player and not a captain,’ he said.

really? Weeks? Most people sensed Pogba wasn’t captaincy material after he was given the armband in August and responded with cryptic comments about his future and veiled jibes in Mourinho’s direction. It took until the end of September, apparently, for the manager to figure this out. What is the matter with him?

Time was, Mourinho was the most decisive boss out there. He was the type who made changes in the first half if he sensed it wasn’t working, who wasn’t scared to switch three players at half-time. ‘Have I done it before? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes,’ he said after an FA Cup game at newcastle in 2005.

After losing one match heavily, he responded by changing Chelsea’s philosophy mid-season, to win a third Premier League title. not every gamble paid off, not every smart, pragmatic move won admirers, either, but Mourinho was indisputably a manager of action.

now he’s one who takes a month or two to make a straightforward character call, who looks on as games drift and who, most importantly, doesn’t seem to know his best team. Mourinho always knew his strongest starting XI. not that he was rigid but, like all the best managers, there was a basic team that was his — and he was sure of it.

How will Manchester United line up against Valencia tonight? How will they play at newcastle on Saturday? Who knows? not Mourinho any more. He has burned through three formations and made 19 changes in seven Premier League games this season as he struggles to alight on the way ahead. Players come from nowhere into vital roles as battlefield promotions, and disappear again as quickly.

It is as if he is either distracted by the political machinations at United, or is running out of ideas. Where Mourinho was once all cold efficiency, now he is throwing his plans at the wall in the hope something sticks.

On Saturday, he played Scott McTominay in central defence at West Ham, then talked him up as an example to all after the game. Yet McTominay had played 20 minutes of football across two substitute appearances to that point — so where was Mourinho’s faith before? Alexis Sanchez may be restored to the side against Valencia having not even made the bench on Saturday. What has he done to merit a recall?

Darren Fletcher once revealed that Sir Alex Ferguson was so clear in his thinking he booked players in for specific games weeks in advance. He recalled being told during one season that he wouldn’t play for two weeks, but to get ready for an important upcoming match at Old Trafford. ‘Just keep thinking about Chelsea,’ Ferguson said. Fletcher played, United won 3-0.

One imagines Mourinho, at his best, achieving similar clarity. It must have taken enormous certainty to reboot a freewheeling Chelsea team from the first half of the 2014-15 season into one that shut games down to seal the title from January onwards. Yet he did it without flinching, an instant reaction to a 5- 3 defeat at Tottenham.

Where is that manager now? Instead of involving himself in the next round of internecine squabbles, should he not get back to the very basics of management? A blank piece of paper, with space for his best XI. Decide on it and work from there. And United need it now, tonight — not after several more weeks of deliberation.