Jose lays it on the line over style change
JOSE MOURINHO has warned Manchester United fans that undoing the square-ball, possession culture developed under Louis van Gaal could cost his team vital points in the early weeks of the season.
The new boss takes his team to Wembley for this afternoon’s Community Shield against Leicester still trying to dismantle the Dutchman’s rigid “philosophy”.
“It’s very difficult,” concedes Mourinho. “It would be easier to get 20 new players and start from zero than to get a squad previously with a top manager but who had such different ideas to mine.
“If you’re a full-back and every time you have the ball you pass to a central defender, and you repeat that for two years, you are not going to change straight away.
“I say we play zonal. We don’t follow the man. We make the team compact.
“In training, you stop, you speak. In competition, you have no time so you go for the automatic, the instinct.
“There’s a contradiction between what they’re used to doing and what they want to do. Mentally it’s not easy to adapt.
“I have two options. We keep the same way because I am afraid to change or I change it, even though that can take some time.
“The target is always to play football adapted to the quality of your players.
“People speak about ‘my way of playing’ but it is always dependent on the players you have.
“When at Chelsea I have Damien Duff and Arjen Robben or when I have Angel Di Maria and Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid, how do you want me to play?
“When I have Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Adriano then Goran Pandev and Diego Milito at Inter, I must play a completely different way.
“If I am going to play with Wayne Rooney and Ibrahimovic I don’t think they are players for the counter-attack.
“We have to be dominant. One way is by having a huge percentage of ball possession but another way is to play in the last third and to use the best quality of our strikers.”
Traditionally Mourinho teams start the season quickly, set a relentless pace and win titles from the front.
“I don’t know if we can do that, to be honest,” he says. “We are using every minute to improve how we play as a team but we need time.”
Nevertheless, Mourinho insists he won’t settle for the top four in his first season, he wants the title.
“I like to create expectation,” he says. “I like the players to feel it.
“During my career I’ve created some unrealistic targets but by doing that you push the team to unexpected levels.
“To win the Champions League with Porto or Inter is unexpected and a very risky objective.
“To win championships in the first season is similar. People say it is arrogant but that’s not a problem.”