There is a sense that United are not right for Mourinho
Defeat against rivals City shows manager needs to rethink his tired approach to the game by taking a leaf out of Ferguson’s book
‘Over the years, we’ve done OK when confronted by things like this, and taking them on is another challenge. We’ve some very good players and, of course, where we start to find a way forward is something we’ll mull over. We’re not lacking in ideas. Hopefully we’ll come up with the right ones.”
This is what Jose Mourinho should have said after Manchester United’s defeat by Manchester City. Instead, those words still belong to Sir Alex Ferguson in his postmatch interview following United’s Champions League final loss against Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona at Wembley in 2011.
If only Mourinho had said something similar on Sunday instead of embarrassingly lashing out about “lucky” City, about wrongly perceived injustices over a penalty he felt his team should have been awarded.
And that came after he had already apparently berated the opposition players for their over-exuberant celebrations in the away dressing room with an ugly fracas ensuing which has already led to a Football Association investigation.
But, then, Mourinho has a history of trying to tell the opposition how, and how not, to celebrate. Last season he chided Antonio Conte for his energetic reaction to the 4-0 hammering Chelsea dished out to United. It is all the richer given the way Mourinho has milked – if that is not the wrong word following what was thrown in the Old Trafford tunnel – wins in the past. Now he appears increasingly sour.
Of course, Mourinho could not have spoken as graciously as Ferguson because the season is not over, City have not (yet) won the title and there is plenty for United to play for – not least the Champions League, with a kind draw against Sevilla in the last 16. That may yet offer Mourinho redemption this season in the way the Europa League did during the last campaign.
But, let us hope (and it is a belated hope) Mourinho will have noticed the reaction in the Old Trafford press-conference theatre to his complaints. No one was buying it. No one. It felt old, tired, worn. A stuck record.
Mourinho had run through the full gamut of pressconference propaganda pre and post-match – City are divers, they make tactical fouls, even that Guardiola gets preferential treatment from the authorities, which would not be afforded to him, in being allowed to wear his yellow ribbon in support of jailed Catalan politicians.
Mourinho is wrong on that one – the FA is, and has been for some time, understanding of such acts. Guardiola also put him away, just as his City team had put United away, with his lucid, impassioned defence of why he was doing it. Mourinho simply appeared petty.
So, it was a bad day for the Portuguese, who also saw United’s formidable run of 40 home matches without defeat – equalling a record set by Sir Matt Busby in 1966 – come to an end. Mourinho has brought back the fear factor to United.
Unfortunately, in the big matches, it is they who are feeling that fear and there comes a time when the kind of reactive, containing football he still depends upon unravels.
I wrote a column at the beginning of last season that suggested the game may have moved on in a way that Mourinho had not and that he had not adapted enough over the years. That caused offence among his entourage and they will, with justification, point to the two trophies that he won last season as evidence that I was wrong. But I stand by it. It is about style of play and style of approach. And it feels like Mourinho has not kept pace. There comes a point when you are either defined as positive or negative. Mourinho is the latter. He wants to destroy first, create second.
It is ironic that Mourinho’s football against the better teams has become associated with the phrase “park the bus”, given that he was the one who coined it to berate Tottenham Hotspur after they faced his vibrant Chelsea side in September 2004 and came away with a goalless draw. “As we say in Portugal, they brought the bus and they left the bus in front of the goal,” Mourinho said.
But it has become his default tactic, with his desire to negate and stultify, his own fear of losing face by being defeated, overwhelming any desire to win. He played four attacking players against City and there was a thrilling momentary thought that, maybe, he would go toe-to-toe with them, but it quickly transpired he would not – could not – and was instead using the quartet to launch long balls and break.
Mourinho is effective. Hugely so. Twenty-five trophies show that, he is a serial winner and he is one of the greatest managers of all time, whose teams have played some brilliant football. His status is secure.
But his continued, inherent caution comes at a price and there is that grating sense that, longer-term, United are not the right club for him. He has the force of personality, the ego and the profile to carry it off – and that is fundamental at a club of United’s dimensions – but not, it appears, the temperament or the tactics.
United are second and no team, apart from City, have scored more than them in the Premier League this season. They are in the last 16 of the Champions League and the last eight of the League Cup.
The statistics are stacked in their favour. They have done well. But the evidence of the eye is clear. They may be a work in progress, Mourinho may need more time and recruitment and will be given that.
It seems harsh, by the way, that he has bombed out a creative talent such as Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who was again not even in the match-day squad – and he may be up against City and Guardiola.
However, the football United played at Old Trafford on Sunday made for uncomfortable viewing. It would be naive to expect that Mourinho might look at that Ferguson quote and consider it is time for a rethink, a reset, of his approach. But it would be the right thing to do.
There comes a time when the reactive, containing football he depends upon unravels