Manchester United have put Zinedine Zidane ‘at the top of their managerial wishlist’ should Jose Mourinho leave the club in the coming months.
Zidane ended his time at Real Madrid days after securing a third straight Champions League triumph, and is currently out of work heading into the new season.
As revealed by Sportsmail this week, Mourinho’s black mood is bringing down his players and unsettling staff on a troubled tour of the US – and he has moved into the bookies’ favourite to be the first Premier League manager to leave his position.
According to a report in The Sun, should Mourinho leave, United want to bring in Zidane to replace him – and he wouldn’t cost them a penny in compensation.
The fact he is currently out of work is a huge boost for the Old Trafford hierarchy, who would be able to skip club negotiations and go straight to the Frenchman.
Mourinho has raised fears that he will not see out his contract at United following a disastrous pre-season tour, in which he has produced a number of astonishing outbursts.
It is understood that his comments about wanting Anthony Martial back in America following the birth of his baby boy caused particular concern among club officials.
‘He 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,’ Mourinho said.
United lost 4-1 against rivals Liverpool in front of 101,000 fans in Michigan at the weekend, and immediately after the game, the United boss said: ‘The atmosphere was good but if I was them I wouldn’t have come.
‘I wouldn’t have spent my money to watch these two teams. I watched Chelsea versus Inter earlier and people had decided the beach was better. The stadium was empty.
‘This is not our team, not our squad. The majority of players that have played are not going to play. Some of them are not even going to belong to the squad. The accumulation of matches is killing progressively my brave boys because I have some brave boys.
‘Reinforcements, you are saying players I’d like to buy and add to the squad. That is another thing, but this is not even 30 per cent of my squad, so don’t look at this that way.
‘We have four or five players that are dead because they care for the club, for the team, they try to give everything, even risking themselves because they don’t want to let all the kids play by themselves against AC Milan, Liverpool and Real Madrid. They don’t want to do that.’
It has been reported that Mourinho’s black mood is bringing down his players and unsettling staff on Manchester United’s troubled tour of the US.
Mourinho’s extraordinary outburst at the weekend continued to reverberate around the United camp in Miami on Monday.
It is understood that his comments about wanting Anthony Martial back in America following the birth of his baby boy caused particular concern among club officials.
Players were also said to be treading very carefully around the unhappy United manager. It emerged that one asked for a segment of an interview to be cut so as not to upset Mourinho.
‘Jose’s mood is dragging the whole tour down,’ a source told Sportsmail on Monday night.
‘He’s clearly not happy with Ed Woodward and everyone else is suffering because of it.’ Another claimed that some players are finding his behaviour ‘exhausting’.