Jose Mourinho - Was He Right?

[sugar_kane]

First of all - I'm glad Mourinho is gone, he was toxic and his brand of football was becoming increasingly terrible.

However since the dust has settled a bit following his sacking and the Ole honeymoon period and we're seeing some of our players revert to type it's looking like a lot of the things he was saying about the players and the club were on the money.

Jose's problem was he went about addressing these issues in completely the wrong way ie. aggressive, confrontational and most fatally of all - in public.

He also had (if rumours are to be believed) some quite concerning ideas about who to bring in, and failed to acknowledge some problems were of his own making eg. bad signings, bad tactics, morale.

Broadly however I think he was on the money about the mentality and attitude problems within our team and I hope Ole is planning to address these despite his public pronouncements around squad strength and praising the likes of Pogba and Martial who quite clearly need to get their shit together or be moved on.

 

[Dec9003]

He was right when talking about the lack of quality and commitment we have.
He ultimately couldn't fix it though, so he needed to go.

 

[Bastian]

Pretty much most of what he said about the team and the players was correct. But it was of course a cardinal sin to do so publicly.

 

[El Zoido]

He was right in many ways but his attitude was toxic. His methods were more “be a complete prick to everyone around me” than “tough love”.

 

[Champ]

I think everyone knew he was right, but you don't go about saying it in such a public way if you're managing the very team you're putting down.
The simple fact is Ole has got the most he can out of the current bunch, which is a lot more than Jose could.
Also the reinforcements that Jose apparently wanted would not have helped going into next season.
Massive rebuilding needed, young blood required along with trusting some of our youth players.

 

[fallengt]

Mourinho was always right but it was also his job to fix problems.

 

[Infra-red]

I would say he was pretty well bang on re Martial, Pogba and the defence (or lack thereof).

His downing of tools in the summer was inexcusable and he was, as the op notes, well worthy of the sack.

 

[Raw]

It was pretty hyperbolic to say that finishing 2nd with this team is his greatest achievement, but there's some truth in that. Squad is an utter joke. Thank goodness we didn't feck it up further by getting the signings Jose wanted.

 

[Slevs]

Of course he was right, but people wanted to believe in the 3rd year curse so bad just so later on they could say "I told you so"

 

[Sterling Archer]

Of course he was right. That was never the problem.

 

[Stacks]

He was right but he also made it worse by alienating all our players and being a prick. Pochettino got no players but at least tried. Jose started playing CM at CB and sabotaging. he is a brat

 

[RORY65]

I don't think he was ever wrong that it's not a great squad or that the football side of the club isn't well run. The problem was he bought (and failed to sell) much of this squad and failed to get anywhere near enough out of the players who are talented while his appointment in the first place was symptomatic of the lack of planning and vision at the club.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

To some extent, yes. I truly don't think our players are as bad as we've seen at times this season. With Jose, earlier in the season, he was purposely sabotaging the club. With Ole, now, we're seeing the same issues come up again because, in my opinion, we're not playing to our teams strengths.

 

[Gator Nate]

He was right to a point, but he wasn't the guy to fix the problems he identified.

 

[RedNed77]

Of course he was right, but people wanted to believe in the 3rd year curse so bad just so later on they could say "I told you so"

So, he should have stayed to prove those people wrong?

 

[Stringer]

The problem for Mourinho was that he was the person being paid to fix these issues and he was doing an awful job of it.

 

[spiriticon]

He was right about the players, but unfortunately also too shite in man-management to do anything positive about it.

 

[Art Vandelay]

He was right, anyone that couldn't see he was right was blinded by hatred of him. The problem was the way he tried to fix it made him part of the problem and he had to go too.

 

[el3mel]

He was right in most of his opinions about the club and players. That's the harsh reality.

People here are too stubborn to admit that. They convinced themselves changing the manager is far more than enough and won't back off from this easily.

Doesn't mean he shouldn't have left, obviously he should have since he wanted it, but the problem wasn't in Mourinho as much as it isn't in Ole currently

Next few years are going to show that even more.

 

[Roboc7]

Of course he was right about some things but he was a terrible manager who only had himself to blame. He probably would have had as struggling for 7th by now and there are plenty of problems he created for Ole.

It’s amazing how quickly people forget, Mourinho made his own position completely untenable and he’d have wasted millions on more deadwood given a chance.

 

[Freak]

He was definitely right. The signs were there to see as well. His approach to dealing with it, however, wasn't right.

 

[JPRouve]

He was right and he was part of the problem. He created a large part of the issues with his transfers, coaching, man management and his own attitude.

 

[United58]

Mourinho's a great judge of a team/pundit, his problem is his toxicity, man management, tactics, negative football - if he got his way, we'd be 10th with 5 or 6 players over 30 on £200k+ p/w

 

[Rhyme Animal]

Yes, he was - he was also right to feel aggrieved at being utterly let down in the Summer by Woodward.

Saying that, he had to go - but appointing a lesser manager obviously wasn't the answer.

 

[haram]

Yes, and he wasn’t backed after finishing 2nd either. He is gone but Woodward is still here and the clown Ed deserves all the criticism he gets.

 

[youmeletsfly]

Of course he was right, everyone and their dog knows we lack quality all around, it's not really rocket science.

He was an awkward case of hypocrisy to be honest. He knew the squad lacked quality when he came here, he then acquired a few dross players and then started to complain about the lack of quality.

I wouldn't have backed him up in the last transfer window as well, otherwise we would've had Willian on 300k/week stealing a living around OT.

 

[OoopsMisclick]

While mourinho was toxic, however, I'm grateful he highlighted what was actually going on behind the scenes.
You nearly never get to see the internal power struggles of a big club. Here it was exposed.

Problem is that the situation is pretty rotten and I think Ole will fail due to politics that will hamper his plan.

 

[PepsiCola]

The players Mourinho wanted - Maguire, Perisic, Willian - would all leave us in a worse spot.

He is a large part of the reason we are where we are.

Guy is a clown.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

The supposedly grand achievement had an air of randomness to it. You never had the feeling that he had a terrible squad punch well above their weight (which is the narrative he's trying to spin, of course) due to being supremely well drilled, managed or coached. It was De Gea at the back and the occasional glimpse of brilliance from individuals at the other end (and Pogba at times, to give him due credit).

We were, and are, a considerably worse team than City - and now Liverpool. Other than that, we were - and are - around the same level as the other also-rans squad quality wise. Works as an excuse for not challenging properly for the title - doesn't work as an excuse for being generally shite, disjointed and prone to being outplayed by teams with objectively worse individual players.

The first run of wins under Ole is indicative of our best XI's potential: significantly better than most, not quite good enough when the opposition gets truly first rate. So, yeah, he was "right" if the supposed contention was simply that we aren't good enough to win anything big. He certainly wasn't right to suggest we should expect losing to Sevilla, etc. Nor was that his own stated opinion of the squad before the season started (I'm talking about his second season, not this one). He was pleased enough with the players at his disposal at that point.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

All our managers were right. But it doesn't change the fact that they weren't good enough to fix the problems.

Moyes was out of depth but having managed at a pretty high level I'm sure he was correct in his assessment of many things - such as the decline in the quality of the squad, and possibly the kind of players we should be looking at.

<<It doesn't change the fact that he simply wasn't cut our for a club of this standard and his coaching/man management was piss poor.>>

LVG was correct about the lack of quality in our squad. He said our wingers aren't top class and he was right about that. He spoke about needing better strikers, a better mentality etc. Nothing wrong with that.

<<At the same time he didn't do enough to address the issues and proceeded to sign players he didn't get enough out of>>

Mourinho was correct about us needing to improve our mentality, CBs etc.

<<At the same time, he is responsible after 2.5 years for having a team that isn't producing and for the shit show of a squad (purchase or development wise) that's been put together under his watch>>

To sum it up, we didn't hire three idiots to manage Manchester United. So of course they were correct about many things. However, they clearly weren't good enough and we have to hope the current manager is both right about many things (like every human being would be) and also actually manages the team well.

 

[.Rossi]

The players Mourinho wanted - Maguire, Perisic, Willian - would all leave us in a worse spot.

He is a large part of the reason we are where we are.

Guy is a clown.

Seriously?

He's the reason we've been bang average to shit in the last 7 years?

 

[haram]

The players Mourinho wanted - Maguire, Perisic, Willian - would all leave us in a worse spot.

He is a large part of the reason we are where we are.

Guy is a clown.

For one, we would have been better off with Perisic. People didn’t want him because of Martial and now people realise it wasn’t Jose that was holding Martial back. Players like Perisic and Willian would go up a level under Jose as well and would have helped our build up and transition. Willian is a PL winner and Perisic just reached a world cup final.

They are not fancy enough though and all people care about is the age of a player and the amount of FIFA skills they can pull off.

Jose was looking for a CB period and Woodward couldn’t sign one. I dont know why you just want to pick out Maguire.

Young and Valencia as fullbacks. Lukaku at number 9, Lingard at number 10, Mata on the right, Pogba in a deeper position next to Matic. Whatever our CB pairing was. Everything people say is shit now, we finished 2nd with. Something isn’t adding up.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

It was pretty hyperbolic to say that finishing 2nd with this team is his greatest achievement, but there's some truth in that. Squad is an utter joke. Thank goodness we didn't feck it up further by getting the signings Jose wanted.

That's the problem. After spending 2.5 years here our squad shouldn't have been shit.

Seriously?

He's the reason we've been bang average to shit in the last 7 years?

Of course. Each of our previous three managers play a part in our current predicament, alongwith the leadership.

 

[gerdm07]

He wasn't right to play dull, crappy football with the squad he had and the run Ole had at the start proves it without doubt. Yes, we are not at a top level, but Mou played as if we were at a mid-table level. I doubt Mou will ever manage a top tier club again. His only hope is to manage a national team like Portugal and do well in the Euros. This would salvage his current reputation a little.

Can we stop talking about Mou?

 

[Hawks2008]

Mourinho is a washed up man with a big ego trying to blame anyone but himself. He set us back another 3 years, nothing he says holds weight.

 

[Bojan11]

Well why did he waste £50m on a CM that he barely played and then moan we ain’t got a CB.

Why did he spend money on a right back that had played ten games or so and then moan Young is going to play 50 games?

He signed Lindelof and Bailly. He signed Lukaku, Matic and Fred. How many of those do we want to keep? He was a big problem too as he wasted lots of money on duds.

 

[.Rossi]

That's the problem. After spending 2.5 years here our squad shouldn't have been shit.


Of course. Each of our previous three managers play a part in our current predicament, alongwith the leadership.

I don't remember him being here when we were embarrassed in the EL back in 2012

You're correct in your assessment of course. No one is blameless.
He was right though in what he said

 

[montpelier]

It was right to give him a go, maybe a bit late with it.

It was right to let him go. He might have been right to an extent, I don't know how much really, but his exceution of the job had reached rock-bottom when he was sacked.

We had a bigger OGS 'bounce' than we might have expected, we are where we are. It's how much you want to accept that is the case, which is the question really.

I feel like the time for being angry about it is over, we should move to accepting things & trying to rebuild knowing that it might take some time.

 

[Ekeke]

No

 

[Canagel]

Imagine complaining about lack of quality after you yourself have spent 2.5 years building the squad. And then proceeding to exacerbate the problem with your tactics and coaching.
We are also still feeling the effects of his diabolical training methods which has left us severely unconditioned for the most critical phase of our season.

Mourinho's opinion is worthless and irrevelant.