3 Things Mourinho Couldn’t Do As The Manchester United Manager

1. Poor Management   One of the main reasons why the Special One has been so successful in his career has been his ability to manage players. Wherever he has gone to, Mourinho has been able to get players to buy in completely into his vision and this has translated into trophies and glory.

With hindsight, it has become clear that his time at Real Madrid led to the antsy, always-annoyed Mourinho of today. Before turning up at the Santiago Bernabeu, he had coached players and teams who had been going through a prolonged dry spell and hadn’t done much in their careers (FC Porto, his first stint at Chelsea and his time at Inter Milan). These players were in awe of his abilities and record and were willing to run through walls for him.

At Madrid, he met a dressing room filled with players who had won Euros, World Cups, multiple league titles and Champions Leagues. He was unable to adapt his methods and this led to lots of friction in the dressing room.

At United, his fallouts with players like Paul Pogba, Martial, and Shaw among others have seen these players underperform. His inability to coax consistently good performances from his players has been baffling and his “us-against-the-world” philosophy is one that looks to be at odds with the abilities/mentality of his Manchester United team.

2. Poor Style of Play

What exactly is Manchester United’s style of play under Mourinho? Are they a counter-attacking unit in the mould of his Real Madrid side? Are they a gegenpressing side like Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool? This is perhaps the biggest issue that Mourinho has failed to address since he arrived in Manchester.

The style of play since Sir Alex Ferguson left has been a mix of contrasting styles; cross-and-hope under Moyes, sleep-inducing possession football under Van Gaal and the present confusion under Jose.

He has chopped and changed many times and still looks unsure of his best XI in his third season at the club. The players are still unsure of what the system is and what their roles are within this system.

This confusion has been a huge reason why the football has been boring, staid and misery-inducing. United fans have been treated to a steady diet of ground-out victories against opposition that should have been blown away, ambitionless draws/wins against fellow top-level opponents and the increasingly regular beating by well-drilled sides (think Sevilla and Manchester City last season and Brighton and Spurs this season).

Pundits, fans and even players are confused as to what exactly United under Mourinho is and this will be one of the biggest things for which his tenure will be remembered.

3. Bad Transfers

There should be no sugar coating it; his transfer record at United has been below average (perhaps terrible would be a better adjective to describe it). Since he joined in 2016, he has spent £388.89m on new talent but a look at his buys would show just how badly he has done.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Nemanja Matic, Victor Lindelof, Eric Bailly are some of the big name purchases he has made and with the exception of Lukaku, it is difficult to make a case that any of them has been a success.

Lindelof has looked like a lost boy making gaffe after gaffe since he joined for £31.5m from Benfica last season. Mkhitaryan was so bad and unrecognizable from his Borussia Dortmund days that it seemed he had been taken over by an alien parasite that sucked away his talent leaving a hollow shell in its place.

The biggest accusation that has been leveled against Mourinho will be that there doesn’t seem to be a plan/coherence behind his transfer policy. Alexis Sanchez was bought from Arsenal without an idea of what he was going to add to the team and with every passing game, the decision to steal him from Guardiola’s clutches begins to look more stupid.

Pogba has done nothing close to what he was doing at Juventus while Chelsea’s eagerness to get rid of Matic looks even more inspired. It is even more galling to note that the better performers; David de Gea, Valencia and the likes were players he inherited.

A decision will probably have to made about Mourinho’s future soon, but there can be no sugarcoating it: it has not been a success.

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