Is Jose Mourinho Reaching Breaking Point At Manchester United?
Listen no one likes a moan quite like Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho.
Yet his gripes this summer seem to be very raw and the Portuguese boss looks to be reaching breaking point at Old Trafford before a ball has even been kicked in anger.
Mourinho has been constantly sniping at his own players, his board and everything to do with his club’s preseason plans thus far.
Jose has never gone beyond a third full season at any of the top clubs that he has managed and at the moment, looking in from the outside, you get the feeling that this could be a make or break year for him at United and he could be gone by next summer if things totally implode.
The fifty-five year old is actually 7/1 favourite to be the next Premier League manager to leave his current club.
We know the Man Utd manager likes to use a great big stick to beat his players with but you can only do that for so long before that particular tactic backfires. It certainly shouldn’t be a move that you overuse, which seems to be the case with Mourinho.
Last term, he constantly berated Luke Shaw and it wasn’t pleasant.
This summer his captain Antonio Valencia and forward Anthony Martial have come in for criticism:
“Antonio Valencia comes from holiday – I think too much holiday for him. His condition was not good when he was back, then injury and also go back.
“Anthony Martial has the baby and after the baby is born – beautiful baby, full of health, thank God – he should be here and he is not here.”
I’m not sure attacking popular player like Valencia does him much favours.
Back in his early days Jose was a fine man-manager and would like to create an ‘us versus them’ attitude with the Chelsea boys during his first stint with the London club. The media being usually cast as the opposition. Yet since his spell at Real Madrid, Mourinho’s demeanour and attitude has changed and it’s as if Mourinho is now setting up friction between himself and his own squad. Which doesn’t gain the same positive results.
Even Mourinho’s comments about World Cup winner Paul Pogba have been somewhat ill judged, in my opinion. He should have really come out and sung the players praises and said that the midfield star was going to do huge things with Man United but instead he’s been a bit tepid congratulating Pogba but also warning him to do more for United.
With Martial already stating that he wants to leave United, I again don’t see what propose it serves for Mourinho to constantly take potshots at the young French forward. it will just drive Anthony further away.
Now I can understand the frustrations the United gaffer has when it comes to preparation and transfer activity.
Unfortunately when you are one of the world’s biggest football clubs then your players will end up going to World Cups and you then stand the chance of seeing a few of them going deep into the tournament, thus meaning they miss a huge chunk of the side’s preseason schedule.
You then have to take a more inexperienced pool on long trips to face other strong teams like Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Madrid.
On the transfer front, things were looking good with the early capture of Brazilian midfielder Fred and the signing of highly rated Portuguese right-back Diogo Dalot.
Yet since those early moves in the transfer market, United have only signed third choice goalkeeper Lee Grant.
Jose Mourinho has stated he would like another two new faces in before the window shuts but concedes that he believes that he’ll be lucky to get one in before their top flight campaign kicks-off on the 10th of August.
It seems clear that Jose wants another central defender and a creative talent. He has been linked all summer with moves for Harry Maguire and Willian. It will be interesting to see if he gets any of his main targets.
His frustration on that front must have caused at least awkwardness between himself and United’s executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward. The two certainly don’t share the same chemistry that Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill shared during their time in the same roles at the club.
You can’t say that Woodward and the United hierarchy haven’t backed Jose since his arrival in 2016. They broke the transfer record bringing in Pogba and last summer they spent a whopping £160m last summer on three players.
Now many have speculated for a while now that Woodward isn’t the best when it comes to doing deals and getting transfer business done. It is believed that the administrator wants to see more deadwood leave Old Trafford before sanctioning more signings. Now that’s alright in theory but it is down to Ed to get those players out of the door and to do it quickly.
He also has to understand that arranging a big trip to the United States during a World Cup year and having that transfer policy isn’t the best of ideas either.
It could be a huge few weeks for Manchester United and their manager.
A couple of really good signings, players coming back from their extended breaks and a good start to their league season could totally change the mood around the club.
But both Ed Woodward and Jose Mourinho need to understand that the fans are becoming extremely frustrated by the infighting and the side’s style of play. Both men could see action demanded against them if things start slowly for the Old Trafford team as the club’s slow summer will be a seen as the last straw for quite a few in the stands.
Posted on July 30th, 2018 by scott
Filed under: Article
José Mourinho is past his best, and will not achieve anything good except dismantling further all Sir Alex has taken years to build.
The best thing is to get rid of the big moaner. Get Ryan Giggs back with the back up of Paul Scholes or Gary Neville, for example as well as people like Mike Phelan and René Meulenstein. Get Sir Alex as advisor and mentor, then the team will be back on track.
I think something is definitely not OK,coz all d time d manager wants buy ages players ad
sold younger one dis a bad idea I think.ad Is not man u tradition pls d management has to something about it.