Surely no one believes that.
Who told them to play that way if not the manager?
Jose Mourinho - Was He Right?
- Thread starter sugar_kane
- Start date
Who told them to play that way if not the manager?
Exactly. The man told us Young shall be playing 50 games this season and here it is unfolding before our eyes. Feck him.
Any average caf resident can say we need new players and they will be right. For what did we pay him millions of pound a year for?
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Please lets stop talking about this delusional tosser. No he was not right. This is the man who was ok with going into the season with his fullbacks being Valencia, Young, Darmian and Shaw. This is the man who sold De Bruyne at Chelsea. The genius who constantly benched Herrera and Pogba. Played Lukaku every single match. Had 4 cbs on the pitch against West Ham. If i recall he even played a midfield of Feillani Matic Mctominay (maybe im wrong about this but he definately would play two out of these three fairly often).
He cannot coach an attacking unit at all. I would rather have Van Gaal back over him anyday of the week. Good riddance
He cannot coach an attacking unit at all. I would rather have Van Gaal back over him anyday of the week. Good riddance
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I would think it was pretty clear by now that some of them are just doing whatever the feck they like. Unless you think ole is telling them to play that way as well?
Your point was about Mourinho though, for me LVG left us in a far worse state and that is the bulk of the squad we are stuck with, having wasted a fortune at a time when we could outspend our rivals significantly more than we can now.
Take out Pogba and Lukaku (with hindsight that money could have been spent a lot better on both) and spending £200m on the squad we were left with at the end of 15/16 isn't going to get us very far. Just like talk of £200m this summer isn't going to be anywhere near enough.
Ajax and United are not comparable in any way shape or form due to the fact that they operate in entirely different ways. Could you imagine if we tried to run our club like Ajax; selling our best players every year and promoting youth to act as replacements (which they do to incredible effect it has to be said)?
Not a chance in hell. Man United's sponsors/global partners would not stand for it. These guys (Adidas, Chevrolet, Aon etc) flat out demand huge names on our shirts to go with their equally huge brands, anything less will see them walk away in a heartbeat. Mata, Pogba, Sanchez, ADM, Falcao, Ibra among others were all purchased with their appeasement in mind, sure these lads are top footballers, but they are also huge household names who will sell shirts regardless of their form on the pitch.
There are certain expectations and responsibilities that come with a huge football club like United, the likes of which you and I could not possibly comprehend. We absolutely must have huge names playing for the club, that's just the way it is. This is what comes with being a United fan these days. Sad but true.
That said, there is little doubt that the clubs current policy of buying their way out of trouble will not change.
You missed the point on purpose or what? It's not compare Ajax And United, but the models.
Bayern, Barcelona, Juventus, even fecking City use similar model. Yes City was laying the groundwork before Pep arrived and he still needed quite some investment to make it his team. And Pep himself said that it's not his job to negotiate, plan for academy.
Go back and read again.
No, I didn't miss your point, it's just not relevant (no offence)
The club cannot adopt an entirely new business model simply because it works for other clubs. It has certain responsibilities & expectations that must be met, as I just tried to explain. Do you really think recruiting a DoF will dramatically change our fortunes in the transfer market? It may assist in identifying the correct targets, to an extent, but unless those targets are huge household names they will not be purchased.
You can bet your ass hair that Woody will chase Bale (or players of similar stature within the game) because that is how the club is run and will continue to run for the foreseeable future.
You missed the point.
It is not business model. It's change in structure to enable football side to operate optimally and limit interference of those who ain't qualified. Yes, A DOF can drastically change one fortune when it comes to transfer market. That's what Pep friend did after getting the office post Rijkard. They turned down Mourinho and helped getting Pep the position. But it's still not the point. The point is the structure behind, which makes sure people involved being accounted for. For example The directors in the board at Barcelona can be kicked out if they fail to meet expectation.
If you put that way regarding Woodward, then why are you even arguing? Thing would be the same, for a model that has manager title, it's just a head coach run by a person who lack football understanding. Managers can't be right, and have no way to correct thing, as their boss can change plan wherever he feels like.
Edit: Put it this way for easy to understand.
A structure is like a recipe. Bad chefs, bad managers may still make a mess of the kitchen. However, with the recipe is there, there is record, so after all the change, the right personnel can continue and restore the kitchen to its prime.
The way we run under our great managers we're for them to do both job with the recipe out of their instinct. It's not possible to passed down the heirs. What happened next an accountant find himself to control the kitchen bank account. He dictate what managers and chefs do. Change thing however he feels, and everyone wonder how to get things back to be the old days. Everyone is too occupied they failed to notice thing around change too.
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But Woodward doesn't identify transfer targets, he merely finalizes them.
Moyes, LVG and Jose were given free reign to pick and choose the targets that would best suit their system, and they were able to choose from amongst the biggest names in football since they were each granted a huge transfer kitty. Win, win for Woody and the board.
Didn't he interfere in the transfer window that last summer and the one before it in Perisic deal ?
Before you say anything, no I'm not saying we would have won the treble if we had signed those, but Woodward definitely had an opinion in the players coming or not and their prices. He finalizes the deals that he thinks will be good for the team, shown by that he refused others because he thought they weren't worth it. Not saying he was right or wrong in interfering but it was definitely not a free reign for those 3 managers.
How do you explain that of Varane brief?
Mata for Moyes, Di Maria for LVG, and Alexis Sanchez. Nobody would believe LVG personally asked for Di Maria. He's as close a LVG's player as Lukaku is a Pep's player. It's clear whose preference these signing belong to.
I see where you're going with this and you may very well be correct, but your theory amounts to nothing more than suspicion until you can provide proof to the contrary. But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to find out you were right.
Even if you are right, the likes of Mata, ADM and Sanchez are top drawer footballers that the vast majority of football clubs across the world would give blood to have play for them (at least they were at the time of purchase) and they should undoubtedly have performed better than they did for United.
Gotta go to bed. Peace.
Wasn't it well known he vetoed Mourinho signings last summer because he thought they weren't worth the money ? Again not saying they should have been bought or anything. He definitely doesn't choose the targets but he surely has an opinion in if they're worth the value or not.
Have a good night.
A plan is needed. Not every player can just perform well regardless system, and yes no coaches can just do miracle on players that don't fit their profile.
In ADM case, just look at what it did. We lost out money and a laughing stock. He was written down as a failed investment. Did we really need to do that or we can spend that money & time differently?
Good night. Sweet dream.
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Was right in every possible way. He had squad of winners in every club he went before , in here he had bunch of overrated and overpaid players.
Jose is a very perceptive football mind and is tactically very astute. You can tell that in his interviews and any pundit work he does. But as a manager it doesn't matter because the players can't stand him and aren't on his side. You can have a genius tactical approach but if your players don't listen to you it makes no difference.
There clearly is a major issue in upper management at United. There is no structure or strong leadership. You can see by the cowardly way Woodward sacks managers that he lacks honesty (maybe integrity is a better word) and tells everyone what they want to hear. The club have wasted hundreds of millions of pounds signing targets identified by a manager who they then sack. The way the club manages the contract situations of assets worth billions of pounds is so incompetent it's scary.
Pogba clearly has a crazy amount of power at the club and in the end, that's what Jose couldn't come to terms with. He tries his best when he feels like it which is a huge problem when you build your team around him.
Jose was right about a number of things but he definitely had to go. The major worry is that the club isn't learning its lesson. They got an absolute gift with Ole and everything was going so positively. The form of De Gea and Herrera (2 of the key players in the revival under Ole) drops off a cliff and news about contract disputes with the club emerges.
Less than a month from the end of the season and talk of the biggest clearout in the club's history and the club still hasn't appointed a Director of Football or implemented a competent recruitment structure. It absolutely beggars belief.
There clearly is a major issue in upper management at United. There is no structure or strong leadership. You can see by the cowardly way Woodward sacks managers that he lacks honesty (maybe integrity is a better word) and tells everyone what they want to hear. The club have wasted hundreds of millions of pounds signing targets identified by a manager who they then sack. The way the club manages the contract situations of assets worth billions of pounds is so incompetent it's scary.
Pogba clearly has a crazy amount of power at the club and in the end, that's what Jose couldn't come to terms with. He tries his best when he feels like it which is a huge problem when you build your team around him.
Jose was right about a number of things but he definitely had to go. The major worry is that the club isn't learning its lesson. They got an absolute gift with Ole and everything was going so positively. The form of De Gea and Herrera (2 of the key players in the revival under Ole) drops off a cliff and news about contract disputes with the club emerges.
Less than a month from the end of the season and talk of the biggest clearout in the club's history and the club still hasn't appointed a Director of Football or implemented a competent recruitment structure. It absolutely beggars belief.
Mourinho was about as wrong as you could get, simply because he was a huge part of the reason we were so fecking awful. He spent 400m, mainly on shite.
feck that man. How anyone is going to portray him as some sort of oracle is beyond me.
feck that man. How anyone is going to portray him as some sort of oracle is beyond me.
Seriously, what has any of this got to do with building a decent side? Mourinho spent 400m on shit players and still couldn’t do anything meaningful in the league - despite being a “genius”. Perhaps his star has considerably waned.
Everything else is just fuelled by uninformed conjecture in the media. And we get the usual frothing at the mouth from people who know nothing about running an organization. Shit takes time, and fans are (on the whole) really, really stupid.
This topic has been done to death by morons across the world, who have no working knowledge of what’s going on inside the club, and constantly contradict themselves.
Here's my opinion on the mourinho era. Sorry in advance for the long post. I think he came in with the right ideals, demanding more from players, wanting to win and challenge for the major trophies and taking exception to those he felt were not producing good enough performances. The football was not great stylisticly but delivered relatively satisfactory results in that we won two trophies and achieved champions league football for the next year. The team seemed built around being disciplined defensively, having pace and power in the team and hitting teams on the break.
In his second year, we started out brilliantly, playing into Jose's game plan and delivering results that had many myself included believing we could challenge for the title. Despite some average performances in Europe we managed to get a favourable draw versus Seville in the knockout stages and all seemed wèll. Then the Christmas period came and we sortie fell apart. The poor results at home returned and city's form had many fans and media people complaining about Jose's style of play. This is when I think it went wrong for him. Being unable to take the criticism, Jose started to ask the team to play in a more possession based style with far less protection offered to the backline. We started to ship goals regularly and went helped by a misfiring strikeforce. Meanwhile city pull further ahead and the gap grows and Jose seems more and more irritated in press conferences. At some point during this time he and Pogba have a falling out. This can be the only explanation for leaving him out for the CL games because even though his form was poor one would think that his inclusion would be mandatory irrespective of form. I believe this called irreparable damage to their relationship especially after United went out. The exit put further fire on all the media criticism and Jose gets more and more annoyed. More public criticism of the players, more public indication he believes the squad isn't good enough.
Coming into the third season, Jose off the bat suggests that his defence isn't good enough and he needs reinforcements. This I think ties into his need to change style of play due to fan and media criticism which in leaving his defence more exposed has exposed their vulnerabilities. Fans and media point out that he signed two of the centre backs currently at the club and rightly so. Jose gets entrenched in his position and this dominates fan and media conversation especially when no new defender is signed. The current defences confidence is destroyed by thus and coupled with Jose's attempts at playing a more possession and pressing based style leads to disastrous results exemplified by the Spurs home game. As poor results continue the squad clearly stop playing and eventually he gets sacked after losing to Liverpool with Pogba again dropped to the bench.
I think if had managed to check his ego, ignore media and fan criticism and stick to the style of play he had at the beginning, Jose would still be here and we be at the very least comfortably in the top four. In the end his ego was his worst enemy and generally managers who spend their time criticising their bosses and their best players tend not to last very long.
In his second year, we started out brilliantly, playing into Jose's game plan and delivering results that had many myself included believing we could challenge for the title. Despite some average performances in Europe we managed to get a favourable draw versus Seville in the knockout stages and all seemed wèll. Then the Christmas period came and we sortie fell apart. The poor results at home returned and city's form had many fans and media people complaining about Jose's style of play. This is when I think it went wrong for him. Being unable to take the criticism, Jose started to ask the team to play in a more possession based style with far less protection offered to the backline. We started to ship goals regularly and went helped by a misfiring strikeforce. Meanwhile city pull further ahead and the gap grows and Jose seems more and more irritated in press conferences. At some point during this time he and Pogba have a falling out. This can be the only explanation for leaving him out for the CL games because even though his form was poor one would think that his inclusion would be mandatory irrespective of form. I believe this called irreparable damage to their relationship especially after United went out. The exit put further fire on all the media criticism and Jose gets more and more annoyed. More public criticism of the players, more public indication he believes the squad isn't good enough.
Coming into the third season, Jose off the bat suggests that his defence isn't good enough and he needs reinforcements. This I think ties into his need to change style of play due to fan and media criticism which in leaving his defence more exposed has exposed their vulnerabilities. Fans and media point out that he signed two of the centre backs currently at the club and rightly so. Jose gets entrenched in his position and this dominates fan and media conversation especially when no new defender is signed. The current defences confidence is destroyed by thus and coupled with Jose's attempts at playing a more possession and pressing based style leads to disastrous results exemplified by the Spurs home game. As poor results continue the squad clearly stop playing and eventually he gets sacked after losing to Liverpool with Pogba again dropped to the bench.
I think if had managed to check his ego, ignore media and fan criticism and stick to the style of play he had at the beginning, Jose would still be here and we be at the very least comfortably in the top four. In the end his ego was his worst enemy and generally managers who spend their time criticising their bosses and their best players tend not to last very long.
Have you seen what the guy has won?
He was right about most things - particularly Pogba and Martial. The problem was those players wouldn’t listen and a division developed which became irresolvable.
I’m not saying Mourinho was the right manager for United, but many games where he was slated the players were clearly shit.
Too many wanted to give a free pass to players who were cheating the shirt.
How many times have you heard Fergie come out and publicly criticise players after a game by name? Not often. Also never once heard Jose accept responsibility for a defeat or poor performance.
People were going on about that constantly at the time, whilst salivating over Sarri who was doing it every week.
Mourinho publicly defended those players for a long time. It only turned when they started running their mouths in public. It’s one thing Mourinho has always done, he only responds publicly when the other person has started that.
In any event that’s not even the point.
Are you replying to the correct message?
What has any of that got to do with building a decent side? In the Barcelona game, the starting 11 was made up of 3 Jose signings, one from the LVG era and the rest were either signed by Fergie or came through the academy. Even 1 of those 4 signings (Pogba) joined the club initially under Fergie.
Fergie retired 6 years ago and you go into a Champions League quarter final with 8 players in the team who initially joined the club under him.
What has that got to do with building a decent side? It might help just a little bit if the club had some sort of coherent transfer strategy so they might have got some top class first team players that can play the desired style of football for the absolute fortune they spent on players over the last 6 years.
You don't think that might help, just a little bit?
You have to look at it another way. Without that ego, he doesn't have the drive to succeed! His approach, style of management is wrong fit for us; but settling for top 4 is what Woodward want. Both Mourinho and LVG question the ambition of this club as a football club. LVG even put it as this club is now a commercial club not a football club. It seems truer every passing day. Both cited their tinpot achievement at United as their biggest achievement in their career. Mere coincidence?
Then youve not been paying attention and most likely just repeating whats been said far too many times. The media pushed the narrative that he should be apologising constantly. He said when the players play well its 50% him and 50% he players. And when they play badly its 50% him and 50% the players. Hes said so many times that we win as a team and lose as a team.
In 2013 the press tried to throw willian under the bus for a crap game. "When asked about Willian, he said: "I don’t think it’s the time to speak about individual performances. We lost and we lost as a team. And I am responsible."
Would you be sick of answering the same bullshit loaded press questions over and over again? I think we can all agree Jose has looked pissed off with the press for a very very very long time.
He was totally right about the quality of players and taking off the captaincy from Pogba. Pogba doesn't deserve it and doesn't deserve to play for Manchester United. he has no respect to the club nor the fans.
IMO, Jose was right to act the way he did no matter what everyone thinks or expects. He was massively let down in the transfer window to strengthen for winning and realized his tenure wasn’t going the way he thought this project was gonna go with this set of management above him. He acted the way he did to get the sack so that he can move on with proper compensation. It’s all business. Our management above our managers don’t really care to get back to the top. They are looking to continue to get the best income from the non footballing side. It’s either they have figured out that it is lucrative enough to keep running the club this way or it’s also possible that they haven’t got a clue what they are doing.
Everything Jose said IMO is fair. It exposes to the world/fans what this club is all about. It also exposes what kind of players we have. We truly have a weak bunch. These players can perform above their levels if they want to but when they go back to being themselves, we have a bang average squad. We needed to buy players no matter age to steady the ship while building for the future but our leaders decided not to back Jose’s needs or I should say our club’s footballing needs. Every squad goes through changes and settling. Some players fit in and some don’t. Some may be a fit right off but as the squad evolve, they could get left behind. You have to keep changing until you have a good squad that can work in the ways of a winning team.
I don’t believe Jose is washed up. He is just a character who would rather get the sack if he is not backed to win.
Everything Jose said IMO is fair. It exposes to the world/fans what this club is all about. It also exposes what kind of players we have. We truly have a weak bunch. These players can perform above their levels if they want to but when they go back to being themselves, we have a bang average squad. We needed to buy players no matter age to steady the ship while building for the future but our leaders decided not to back Jose’s needs or I should say our club’s footballing needs. Every squad goes through changes and settling. Some players fit in and some don’t. Some may be a fit right off but as the squad evolve, they could get left behind. You have to keep changing until you have a good squad that can work in the ways of a winning team.
I don’t believe Jose is washed up. He is just a character who would rather get the sack if he is not backed to win.
He was right about the squad being poor. But he had 2 years to try and rectify that, and we still saw no signs of improvement. I wasn't keen on how he was trying to do so either, signing players like Matic, wanting Perisic, Alderweireld, Willian etc.
In his defence though, I did say before he was sacked that the manager is the least of our problems, it's the players that are the issue. I looked like a twat when Ole starting winning with them, but it now appears to have been the case after all. The most telling sign that Jose had a point I think was that even Ole, the nicest bloke in the world, is visibly frustrated with how poor some of the players are. Some of his quotes is today's presser are pretty scathing, not something you'd expect from him just a few weeks ago. I think you can therefore empathise with Jose just a little, as you can tell both managers have felt the need to call them out on it.
In his defence though, I did say before he was sacked that the manager is the least of our problems, it's the players that are the issue. I looked like a twat when Ole starting winning with them, but it now appears to have been the case after all. The most telling sign that Jose had a point I think was that even Ole, the nicest bloke in the world, is visibly frustrated with how poor some of the players are. Some of his quotes is today's presser are pretty scathing, not something you'd expect from him just a few weeks ago. I think you can therefore empathise with Jose just a little, as you can tell both managers have felt the need to call them out on it.
He has enough time and chance to sort that out. But instead of doing that he was crying because he didn't get his chocolate.
Mourinho: 17 games, 26 points, 0 GD
Solskjaer: 16 games, 38 points, +19 GD
He was right in that the squad he helped to put together wasn't good enough. He also had them dramatically underperforming and playing the most cowardly football anyone has ever seen.
Solskjaer: 16 games, 38 points, +19 GD
He was right in that the squad he helped to put together wasn't good enough. He also had them dramatically underperforming and playing the most cowardly football anyone has ever seen.
Mourinho was right about a lot of things and the man knows football like few has during these last couple of decades. He deserves credit for that no doubt. However - he's also also been a complete dick about it - focusing on wiping his crotch with his insights then rubbing it in everyone's faces rather than acting as an ambassador for his approach winning both players and fans over. So there's that - and then there's the fact that the style of play he advocates too often is what I consider to be anti-football. Effective sure - but so restricting I feel it would be as boring and unrewarding playing it as it is watching at times. And also - more importantly - something you would consider beneath a group of truly talented players well capable of winning games without resorting to such - which is what I want United aspiring to be. We shouldn't settle for being a mediocre club only capable of battling in the top due to deploying lameassics all across the field - but rather setting our sights on being so awesome we can toy our way there. Not just win - but also to do so in style.
I was not happy when Mourinho got appointed - in fact I wasn't even happy we panicked and sacked Van Gaal so quickly as I felt that was quite undignified - that he had something good brewing and would have made a huge impact given some patience from both the support and the board - but that being said I actually did think Jose would deliver and was surprised both of how mediocre we looked under him and even more so when we started spiraling. So in short... Happy to see him appointed? Not by any means no. Did I think he'd succeed and was I surprised to see him go out as he did? Yes - but weirdly enough not saddened. I'm glad we have Solskjær here now because even if he fails I know I still won't feel any less about him and even if that happens (I don't think it will though) I'll still applaud our board for having the guts to bet on someone like him who's so attached to this club rather than going for some bigger name outside the "family". Mourinho however? I would find his presence hard to stomach even if he served us all the silverware in the world. And I do love silverware - have no doubts there - so that speaks volumes about how schizo that man can make one feel.
It'd be a bittersweet success at best.
I was not happy when Mourinho got appointed - in fact I wasn't even happy we panicked and sacked Van Gaal so quickly as I felt that was quite undignified - that he had something good brewing and would have made a huge impact given some patience from both the support and the board - but that being said I actually did think Jose would deliver and was surprised both of how mediocre we looked under him and even more so when we started spiraling. So in short... Happy to see him appointed? Not by any means no. Did I think he'd succeed and was I surprised to see him go out as he did? Yes - but weirdly enough not saddened. I'm glad we have Solskjær here now because even if he fails I know I still won't feel any less about him and even if that happens (I don't think it will though) I'll still applaud our board for having the guts to bet on someone like him who's so attached to this club rather than going for some bigger name outside the "family". Mourinho however? I would find his presence hard to stomach even if he served us all the silverware in the world. And I do love silverware - have no doubts there - so that speaks volumes about how schizo that man can make one feel.
It'd be a bittersweet success at best.
I will quote you in 2 season time, and let's see whether it's enough time to change our fortune of underinvesting years followed by swing in philosophy.
Well put
Brilliant post. So true.
Respect to someone who admits they had it wrong. A lot of people seem to be coming to this way of thinking. I have been to and fro, but now I think you are right. It’s not encouraging, really I have never felt less hopeful about United. Are we doomed to living in Wengerland, eternally sixth, or noble failures? Wonder if the rumours about the Glazers wanting out are true? And what lies beyond that black hole?
Mourinho was right to do everything he could to get away from this club ASAP with a tidy pay off.
Before his sacking it was generally agreed that Woodward and others needed to go with him. That has not changed.
Before his sacking it was generally agreed that Woodward and others needed to go with him. That has not changed.
I was right about every single aspect of the Mourinho debacle. Many other beliefs have been proven true since his exit, too.
Which beliefs, out of interest?
I'm glad he's gone. Never wanted him here in the first place, just glad he's out and couldn't care less about the rest