Has Jose Mourinho lost it?

omnomnom said:
Why is my post nonsense? Nor you or I have any idea whats actually going on behind the scenes however what i do know is publicly slaughtering the lad clearly hasn't done any good and isnt going to going forward. It's fine saying he isnt mentally tough enough, i dont think he is either however that doesn't excuse Jose essentially bullying him and putting his teams failings on an individual. What is he looking to gain out of it all? Just don't play the lad if you don't want to. Jose is looking after number one here, if it doesn't work out at United he knows his next job is a massive step down and in my opinion the pressure is showing.




Agree, perhaps Jose should have signed one with the hundreds of millions he's spent instead of a professional dabber.



Again, i agree...not need to hang him out to dry though is there.
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He didn't blame the whole performance on Shaw though, did he? The interviewer asked why he took Shaw off IIRC.
 
Calpol said:
Ok - apologise, a bit harsh.
The point I am making is that this is elite level sport and to make it at this level you have to be tough physically and mentally. Mourinho knows this, he has 25 years coaching experience at top clubs. to suggest he doesn't know how to handle players I think is naive and counter to what we see from his handling of the likes of Lingard, Rashford, McTominay who he clearly sees have a consistently better attitude to go with their talent than Shaw does. What we see is snapshot of the management approach the manager employs. We see the sneering public persona he uses to deal with the press. I suspect Mourinho knows what ti takes to be a winner and doesn't see it in equal measure from all his players. It's a test of how bad players want it
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Yes and we also see a 22 year old.player with a known attitude problem who was (rightly) hyped up, probably inflating his ego even more, who should be well past his injury concerns and be listening to the advice he's being given... I wonder if he'll look back one day and have a change of heart like some players do when they have a falling out with the manager.
 
Converge said:
Thing is, when he goes on another spending spree in the summer will it just bring in more players that fit his 'style' (if you can call it that) of football, which means any manager taking over in future is going to have more of a task on their hands with getting the attacking football going again?

The longer he sticks around, the more painful and elongated this is all going to be in the post-Mourinho years too I think.
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You only need to look at Liverpool to see that Mourinho has lost his touch and he lost it a while ago too. That second season at Chelsea he was done in and never recovered.

Men Utd have spent billions on players who simply aren't good enough or too inconsistent or being played in the wrong system / formation / position.

You don't take someone like Pogba and play him as a holding mid. Nor do you take a player like Mata and not play him behind your striker and give him 1 game in every 8.

He is complaining about Man City spending the type of money you do on strikers on defenders. But let's face it. It's a team game. Doesn't matter if you score if you cannot stop leaking goals at the back.

Goalkeepers, centre halves, full backs and holding mids are just as important.

Azplicueta for instance would walk into any team in the world. He is easily worth more than Pogba IMO. He's been consistently amazing for like 4+ seasons now and even when being played out of position for the majority of it.

It would be frightening to see chelsea had they kept Diego Costa and they bought Van Dijk to replace Terry and not sold Matic, Mata, Lukaku or De Bruyne. Most of those players sold were under Moroninho. Who sells their player of the year (Mata) to their rivals? Just because he doesn't tackle as much as Oscar who is now uknown in the world of football?
 
Looking at the squad United have got compared to other top sides I can understand why he's miserable. I think he's done well this season considering. His tactics have been boring and negative yeah but United have let their sqauad deteriorate and made too many bad signings in recent years.
 
Coming back to this topic, I am struggling with Mourinho really.

Firstly, off the pitch I don't have a big problem with him, I like that he winds everyone up and acts a bit weird, no issue there.

However, on the pitch, and likely in the dressing room, the situation is dire. He doesn't like or rate half of the squad, some justifiably, but he's brought in quite a few of these players. And on that topic, his transfers have largely failed, and he's made no effort to coach the players and improve the tactics.

The team are set up in a very rigid fashion and are too worried about their defensive duties to play any creative football. Either that or they aren't making an effort for him, which creates another issue.

I don't think he'll go this summer, but this coming season will be telling, he either changes and adapts, or he'll be sacked and pretty much finished as a top level club manager.

I am really hopeful we get some good players in this summer, and somehow things change on the pitch, but I suspect before Christmas most of the fans will want him gone and the football will still be poor.

I genuinely thought he might change, but there's absolutely no sign of that so far.
 
mmj_uk said:
Looking at the squad United have got compared to other top sides I can understand why he's miserable. I think he's done well this season considering. His tactics have been boring and negative yeah but United have let their sqauad deteriorate and made too many bad signings in recent years.
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and who signed them? he has spent about £400m since he has been there. thats more than enough to build a decent team.
 
I'm sure many will disagree, but I thought Van Gaal was actually starting to take Man U in the right direction. The football had generally been terrible there's no doubt about that, but he was starting to bring through some young and exciting players.

Under Mourinho there's no real signs of direction, other than more of the same. Replace the inconsistency of youth with players who're older, more reliable but nothing special and create a team that knows how to grind out points over a season.

But as people have said - the target is top 4 and Van Gaal failed to deliver, whereas Mourinho hasn't. But I really don't see anything to get excited about as long as Mourinho's in charge.
 
Personally I thought LvG was the worst United manager I've ever seen. The football was more boring than Mourinho's football, plus I think he only really played youth because so many of his transfers flopped or were injured. It was the first time in my life I hadn't looked forward to watching United, and often wondered why I was bothering.

My concern with Mourinho is that he seems to be shunning young players even more than usual. Martial has been linked to a transfer away, Rashford and Pogba have been disappointing, Shaw and Bailly haven't been given a proper chance, etc. I'm concerned that when Mourinho is gone we'll be left with an ageing squad that costs a fortune to fix. Youth doesn't have to be a problem in a side, City and Liverpool have done well this season mixing youth and experience, but Mourinho seems to believe that youth equals inconsistency and that a lot of United's problems this season are because he has too many young players not performing. Signing Sanchez was confirmation that Mourinho doesn't trust youth and wants experienced players, but that's such short-term thinking.
 
Mourinho plays far better football than LvG. Far too many people love to stick the knife into Mourinho and comment on United who have watched a handful of our games over the past 5 years.

Moyes was the worst - the team looked completely devoid of anything and tactically we were just dire in every way. Players didn't care, weren't happy and we were awful.

LvG had us playing the sort of football that he wanted which was the most boring possession based dirge I have watched as a United fan. We would lose a game after having 70% possession but not threatening their goal once.

Mourinho has us playing the best football we have in a while but its still really negative and good performances are rare. We beat teams because we are reasonably solid at the back and have enough star players that we should at least have a few moments of good football in 90 minutes and score. We have a squad full of quality players but a massive lack of tactics when it comes to breaking forwards. Our movement as a team is really poor and when you compare us to any of the good attacking sides in the league we are miles off them.

Honestly, over the past 5-6 years DDG has won us god knows how many points that we perhaps didn't deserve. We would probably be 10 points or so worse off this season without him. I'm not convinced Mourinho is capable of getting the most out of a team and relies on having the best squad in a league. City have the best squad and play the best football. There is no reason that we can't play good football with the team we have, the manager just doesn't know how to or won't risk it.
 
nicktay2605 said:
Youth doesn't have to be a problem in a side, City and Liverpool have done well this season mixing youth and experience, but Mourinho seems to believe that youth equals inconsistency and that a lot of United's problems this season are because he has too many young players not performing. Signing Sanchez was confirmation that Mourinho doesn't trust youth and wants experienced players, but that's such short-term thinking.
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Young players are inconsistent until you give them the confidence and playing time they need to settle. If you don't play them regularly I don't know what you can expect to happen. Martial has been binned for weeks on end after doing well or he has been given 10 minutes to turn around a game. I couldn't understand why City kept playing Sane at the start of the season. He looked rubbish. Lost the ball a lot, didn't seem to bring much to the team, overran the ball a lot, heavy first touch etc. By the end of the season he was easily one of their most vital players and key to pinning teams back and punishing them on the break.

What really annoys me is that young players are expected to be world beaters or get dropped yet certain senior players can be utterly crap or at least massively average and they are a shoe in for the first XI.
 
nicktay2605 said:
Personally I thought LvG was the worst United manager I've ever seen. The football was more boring than Mourinho's football, plus I think he only really played youth because so many of his transfers flopped or were injured. It was the first time in my life I hadn't looked forward to watching United, and often wondered why I was bothering.

My concern with Mourinho is that he seems to be shunning young players even more than usual. Martial has been linked to a transfer away, Rashford and Pogba have been disappointing, Shaw and Bailly haven't been given a proper chance, etc. I'm concerned that when Mourinho is gone we'll be left with an ageing squad that costs a fortune to fix. Youth doesn't have to be a problem in a side, City and Liverpool have done well this season mixing youth and experience, but Mourinho seems to believe that youth equals inconsistency and that a lot of United's problems this season are because he has too many young players not performing. Signing Sanchez was confirmation that Mourinho doesn't trust youth and wants experienced players, but that's such short-term thinking.
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His short term thinking is what has won him so many trophies etc.. but for man united it is definitely not short term thinking that is needed. Look at what Guardiola and co are setting up across the road, young players like Sane, Sterling and Jesus that have years of quality football left in them. And already a premier league title under their belts.

Just depressing to see the damage he is doing to some of the players, wasted on the bench etc.. could have been completely different with another manager.
 
dacads said:
His short term thinking is what has won him so many trophies etc.. but for man united it is definitely not short term thinking that is needed. Look at what Guardiola and co are setting up across the road, young players like Sane, Sterling and Jesus that have years of quality football left in them. And already a premier league title under their belts.

Just depressing to see the damage he is doing to some of the players, wasted on the bench etc.. could have been completely different with another manager.
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I agree, but then United's board and fans knew what we were going to get when Mourinho was appointed, he was always unlikely to change his approach. If anything he has become more cautious and less willing to adapt as he has aged. Hopefully we'll get a few decent signings this summer and improve next season, otherwise I think he'll be gone by this time next year.

fez said:
Young players are inconsistent until you give them the confidence and playing time they need to settle. If you don't play them regularly I don't know what you can expect to happen. Martial has been binned for weeks on end after doing well or he has been given 10 minutes to turn around a game. I couldn't understand why City kept playing Sane at the start of the season. He looked rubbish. Lost the ball a lot, didn't seem to bring much to the team, overran the ball a lot, heavy first touch etc. By the end of the season he was easily one of their most vital players and key to pinning teams back and punishing them on the break.

What really annoys me is that young players are expected to be world beaters or get dropped yet certain senior players can be utterly crap or at least massively average and they are a shoe in for the first XI.
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Yeah, when you purchase younger players you have to expect that they're going to have the odd poor game due to inexperience and just roll with those bad games. The managers of the other top four sides have put faith in their young players and stuck by them through poor performances. As you say, Sane was inconsistent at times this season, Sterling missed some great chances, Jesus took time to find his feet again after the injury, but Pep stuck by them and didn't publicly criticise them or haul them off at half time as a result. Equally, Klopp has fielded Robertson and Alexander-Arnold through good and bad performances and they are turning into excellent full-backs. Poch has stuck by Alli throughout the season even when he's been criticised for diving, overplaying, etc. Ferguson was brilliant at knowing what approach to take with each player in his squad. For example, he often gave Rooney a lot of stick in the dressing room, but he did that because he knew Rooney would respond well to it and it would take some of the attention away from other players. Equally, some players like Ronaldo responded better to an arm around the shoulder and being reassured.

It's going to be really interesting to watch some of the struggling United players at the World Cup. If, for example, Pogba has a good World Cup for France then that's going to make Jose look bad and really call into question his man management and tactics.
 
Too many bad players simple as that.

Too much reliance on one or two key players with the obvious one being de gea.

I don't think it's a stretch to say we could do with replacing about 5 players if we wanted to profess as a club...

Blind
Young
Valencia
Smalling
Jones
Hererra

Plus some iffy ones:

Sanchez - too old
Matic - too old

Plus we need good attacking wing players.
 
I can see us sticking with him throughout next season through stubbornness of the board, they'll point to his success (as he does constantly) and say he has a track record. If we stick with him we'll be out of the top four in 2020 never mind fighting for titles. Every other top club has been appointing progressive modern coaches and they will be in place for 2-5 years by that point. new coaches at Chelsea and Arsenal this coming season will be the only reason we may hit top four, but even that isn't a given.
 
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