IS JOSE’S FIRE GOING OUT?
United expected the ‘Special One’ but it’s been flat so far
Manchester United fans are left questioning if Mourinho has lost his magic as the ‘Special One’ continues to cut a lacklustre figure at Old Trafford
LONGEVITY should never be taken for granted in football. Wayne Rooney is discovering that the fires can burn out more quickly than expected. The question is: Are we watching Jose Mourinho suffer in the same way?
It is far too early to make this call. At Real Madrid, they asked the same question of the Portuguese coach and at the end of his second season he took Barcelona’s La Liga title away from them by nine points.
Nevertheless, Manchester United’s early-season form under the 53-year-old has not been convincing.
The performances of Mourinho’s team have not consistently done enough to dispel suggestions hanging over from his catastrophic denouement at Chelsea last season that his powers were on the wane.
Equally interesting is the fact that some people at Old Trafford have been a little underwhelmed by the version of Mourinho that walked through the door as a replacement for Louis van Gaal.
Mourinho has always managed by personality, as much as anything. In that way, he is not dissimilar to United icon Sir Alex Ferguson. But so far his time at United has been notable for the absence of the almost intangible charisma that so characterised his first spell in the Premier League.
All managers change. They have to. Certainly Ferguson did. Indeed, the brilliant opening credits to Match of the Day 2 on Sunday night featured Mourinho accentuating this.
‘I change,’ said Mourinho. ‘There is something that didn’t change, which is the happiness to work, the desire to win, the feelings after defeat. But I change. More experience, more maturity. I question my methods every day and my methods have always an evolution.
‘What drives me is the pleasure of life, and the pleasure of life for me is my football. But I change.’
Mourinho was hired to bring life back to United after the draining tenure of Van Gaal. He was hired, essentially, to do what he has traditionally been good at and so far that has not happened. At times, his remarkable ability to pick, organise and drive a team has been on show. The excellent draw United took from a visit to Liverpool at the beginning of last week was an example of this.
In the eyes of some United staff, however, there has been an absence of that special something that so often set Mourinho apart from the many who have competed against him over the years and lost.
Back in the day, employees at United’s Carrington training ground used to know that all was well with the world when they heard Ferguson’s more than passable singing voice drifting down the corridors on a wet Manchester Wednesday.
Those same staff are still getting to know Mourinho and, in many ways, are still waiting for the hurricane to arrive.
After the club arrived home from a pre-season trip to China, the manager’s mood was described as being a little ‘flat’ and informed sources suggest that little has changed since.
Mourinho would probably argue that these are early days.
He was only 41 when he first arrived at Chelsea in the summer of 2004. Time changes everybody. But what is clear is that Mourinho needs to find some of his erstwhile magic dust pretty soon if he is to move United forwards again in a Premier League campaign that, fortunately for him, has shown itself to lack an outstanding team so far.
Sunday’s 4-0 defeat by his old club at Stamford Bridge will have embarrassed Mourinho but will have worried seasoned United watchers because it contained elements of problems that dogged the team last season under Van Gaal, namely aimless periods of possession and big name players under-performing.
The debate about Paul Pogba’s indifferent play has swirled for a while, but he can be now be joined by Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the ‘jury is out’ folder.
What, meanwhile, of another player signed by Mourinho this summer, the Armenian midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan?
Some of United’s indifference can be attributed to mistakes of the past. The current Old Trafford squad comprises far too many players seen as ‘ifs, buts and maybes’ and the manager has little choice other than to work with them until the new transfer windows roll around. But this was always Mourinho’s magic trick, the art of dragging the very best from what he has. He started that at Porto in 2002 and it was this art form that he brought to Chelsea and beyond. Every manager likes to present a new face to the world occasionally but right now what United need is a flash of the old one.
Some behind the scenes are underwhelmed by him so far