The Jose Mourinho Appreciation Thread
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Nah, the owners and Woodward care purely about the money and yet they don't seem intelligent enough to realise that Mourinho is currently costing the clubs huge amounts of money indirectly.
Players values are plummeting from their performances
Players morales and faith are plummeting and some I'm sure will want to leave
We will have to pay far over the odds to bring in top players and won't get the very best at the moment because of the position we are in and no CL next season.
Eventually sponsors will leave
Ticket sales will drop
Merchandising will drop
It seems that all Woodward is looking at right now is the payoff for Mourinho if we sack him early.
Soldato
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I don't think it's the payoff, I think it's the lack of suitable replacements available right now. If Mourinho was sacked now it would either leave Carrick in charge as caretaker, which is incredibly tough for someone who has only been coaching since the start of the season, or we'd have to choose the best of the available managers right now. I don't think the United board feel that Zidane or Conte are suitable and I'd agree. Conte is just like Mourinho, he'd be an awful option, and Zidane is unproven outside of Real Madrid.
I think Woodward has already decided to sack him, but he's waiting until the summer so that we can get a decent replacement.
I think Woodward has already decided to sack him, but he's waiting until the summer so that we can get a decent replacement.
So from my point of view the decision is very obvious.
Mourinho has to go. Currently he is doing a **** job, not getting results, players are regressing under him and there is nothing to suggest he is even treading water at the moment. Getting in a caretaker manager from either within or externally isn't hard and literally all they have to do is improve morale and get the players enjoying their football again. We aren't getting CL football. Thats gone. We aren't winning the CL. Thats never happening in a million years.
Mourinho has gone, you have a caretaker and you appoint a full time manager at the end of the season. We finish in 10th after being erratic but playing some OK football at times then so be it.
I don't want Conte or Zidane anywhere near the club. Conte is Mourinho mk.2 and Zidane has 0 experience managing anyone but the best team in the world at the time full of star players who had been together for years prior to his appointment. There are literally no parallels between United now and RM of Zidanes time there. He also did a runner as soon as the house of cards looked like falling.
I want a manager like Pocettino who develops a team and his players. Who doesn't make excuses and works with what he has. I can only imagine what Tottenham would look like if Mourinho had managed them for the past 3 years yet recently he was bemoaning the fact he didn't have players like Kane, Alli, Son and Erikson. Players who have all been nurtured by Poch and would have been out of the door with Mourinho before they even got a sniff at the first team.
Mourinho can only do more damage to the team the longer he stays and there is nothing he can do that will be remotely positive. If he was fighting for top 4 I would say "yes, keep him until the end of the year and replace" but hes just making a mess of us top to bottom.
It's getting to the point where I genuinely think Mourinho wants to get sacked - to lose to your biggest rivals whilst playing like Stoke and leaving your most talented players on the bench and then post game praise Liverpool and their players in a way that's ****ing on your own players isn't going to go down well with your players, board or fans. It will look better for him if a caretaker comes in now because this Utd side aren't going to turn things around overnight, they'll continue to struggle and then Mourinho can point to that as a defence of himself. The last thing Mourinho wants is to finish a distant 6th, get embarrassed by PSG and then a new manager have the opportunity to make tangible changes in the summer and for things to improve.
Like @nicktay2605, I'm not convinced it makes complete sense to sack him now and not just because I'm enjoying the mess Utd are in. Utd have been completely rudderless since Fergie and Gill went, there's no clear idea of what they want to do nor how they're going to do it. If you're a manager like Pochettino (for example) then why are you going to leave Spurs for Utd when you have no idea what you're walking in to? He could go from being one of the most promising managers around with his pick of top jobs to being sacked in 12 months for failing to make the CL with Utd. The first thing Utd must do is decide what sort of club they're going to be and put a plan in place as to how they're going to do it. If Utd are going to go down the Director of Football/Sporting Director route then do it, put the men in place that you want to run the show and then look at the manager then.
The biggest issue that Utd are going to face moving forwards is that any new manager is going to have a squad made up of 4 different managers and imo a lot of those players don't really fit into your typical modern, high energy, attack minded managers way of playing. I know a lot of Utd fans are very supportive of the likes of Pogba and Martial but it's not just Mourinho that wouldn't tolerate them - the likes of Pep, Klopp and Poch wouldn't either, the only difference is the alternatives wouldn't be slow, cumbersome players like Lukaku, Matic and Fellaini.
Like @nicktay2605, I'm not convinced it makes complete sense to sack him now and not just because I'm enjoying the mess Utd are in. Utd have been completely rudderless since Fergie and Gill went, there's no clear idea of what they want to do nor how they're going to do it. If you're a manager like Pochettino (for example) then why are you going to leave Spurs for Utd when you have no idea what you're walking in to? He could go from being one of the most promising managers around with his pick of top jobs to being sacked in 12 months for failing to make the CL with Utd. The first thing Utd must do is decide what sort of club they're going to be and put a plan in place as to how they're going to do it. If Utd are going to go down the Director of Football/Sporting Director route then do it, put the men in place that you want to run the show and then look at the manager then.
The biggest issue that Utd are going to face moving forwards is that any new manager is going to have a squad made up of 4 different managers and imo a lot of those players don't really fit into your typical modern, high energy, attack minded managers way of playing. I know a lot of Utd fans are very supportive of the likes of Pogba and Martial but it's not just Mourinho that wouldn't tolerate them - the likes of Pep, Klopp and Poch wouldn't either, the only difference is the alternatives wouldn't be slow, cumbersome players like Lukaku, Matic and Fellaini.
Its a shame really. Mourinho is a decent very good manager and was one of the best not so long ago. I think he bought too many big names and with that many egos in your side it must be an almost impossible job keeping them all happy and pampered.
I seriously think that Man U would be less than 19 points behind Liverpool at the end of the season if he played and managed a team without your Pogba's and players of the like and he fielded a team that just does as they are told and play the football that Jose wants them to play.
Every time is see Man U play there is a serious lack of energy and want to win the game. Yesterday for example looked like you just couldnt be bothered. Get those big names out and give some players who actually care a go at trying to save this Man U season. As far as i can see its the players throwing dummies out that are destroying this Man U season, not so much the manager.
I seriously think that Man U would be less than 19 points behind Liverpool at the end of the season if he played and managed a team without your Pogba's and players of the like and he fielded a team that just does as they are told and play the football that Jose wants them to play.
Every time is see Man U play there is a serious lack of energy and want to win the game. Yesterday for example looked like you just couldnt be bothered. Get those big names out and give some players who actually care a go at trying to save this Man U season. As far as i can see its the players throwing dummies out that are destroying this Man U season, not so much the manager.
I don't think he would give a single ****. We could get in a new manager, win the league by 10 points and sign a single player in the summer and Mourinho would still genuinely think that the new manager was lucky or the players suddenly started playing for no reason or that the single new signing under his management would have turned United into world beaters. Hes delusional and repeatedly bemoans the lack of qualities in our players that his management style is completely at odds with creating. He looks at Liverpool and doesn't see a well drilled team that moves as a unit and works as a team. He doesn't see that average players are giving their all and simply know their jobs and do them. He sees a side that just works hard while his players don't. He sees players that are in form as a result of luck not management.
He looks at Spurs and sees their top players as pure luck and not the result of faith and good coaching. He sees a defender at another club thats performing well and thinks that if that defender was at United suddenly we would be solid at the back despite our complete tactical ineptitude. It boggles my mind that he is happy to publicly complain about issues entirely of his own making whilst giving examples of good management and their results as proof he "doesn't have the players".
Mourinho could have completely ruined a number of players by the end of the season and dug us an even bigger hole to crawl out of if he is left to it. What benefit is there to keeping him until March next year over a caretaker manager?
The difference is that Pep, Poch and Klopp would coach their players to play in a particular way and get the best out of them. If they are moved on you would be confident it was because they were not good enough or not a good fit. The players are a product of the manager and ours refuses or is unable to give the team any identity and makes it his business to destroy their confidence instead of build it up. I mean honestly, how many of the Liverpool first XI are truly top class and are coveted by other big teams. VVD, Salah and Firmino. Klopp has turned a number of players that were there before he was into the kind of players he wants. Milner is a prime example of a very limited footballer under a good manager. The sort of player Ferguson always had a lot of. They know their jobs and they do them. Our players don't have a clue what they are doing when they are put on that pitch.
United don't have enough players that would put up with his **** anymore to do that. Mourinho has been laying into the team since before pre-season. Questioning their quality, work ethic, desire, talent and ability constantly. He was manager at Chelsea when they were relegation material and a season and a half later they won the league. To have a manager that can make his players down tools so spectacularly is impressive on some level.
This idea that work rate is 95% of football is utterly ridiculous as well. When you don't know where to run and you don't get the ball when you do make runs then why would you run for the sake of it. Go watch City play for a while and they all know where each other are on the pitch. They play passes without bothering to look because thats where a player should be and do you know what? Hes there 95% of the time because they have trained that movement. Work rate is important but it needs to be with a purpose. All the good teams in the league aren't just running around at 100 miles and hour. Top level footballers will just take you to pieces if you run around like headless chickens. Liverpool took a while to adapt to Klopp and it went wrong at times because a press only works if you do it right. If you don't then you leave yourself vulnerable. The players are not blameless but I put 10% on the board, 10% on the players and 80% on Mourinho.
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You can be lazy in the head as well. Football at the top level needs for you to be quick on your feet as well as the head but to achieve this you need to be 100% committed. I dont see much commitment from United players on the pitch.
I disagree. Mourinho loves to turn to the press and say I told you so. When you lost vs Spurs earlier in the season he sat in his press-conference and came out with all that rubbish about 'you wanted me to play attacking football' and 'you complained when x didn't play'. If Utd replace him now and things don't pick up straight away then he'll have his defence - he'll turn around and tell everybody "see, it's the players not me".
There might not be any tangible benefit but sacking him now just adds to the circus that Utd are at the moment. Given the mess of the last 6 years or so it's already going to be hard enough to persuade somebody like Poch to leave Spurs for Utd. Get your house in order first, appoint your Dof (if that's the way the club are going) and then start making your decisions. Until you've got the foundations in place then you can't begin searching for a new manager. Who knows, maybe the right manager to work within a certain structure is available now but you won't know until you decide on the plan for moving forwards.
I don't disagree with the first sentence here, the point I was making is that I don't believe that you could coach Pogba and to a lesser extent Martial to play the way these managers play and I think that applies to a large number of your squad but for different reasons. For all the talk of Pep and Klopp's great attacking football, their sides are also incredibly tactically disciplined, play high tempo, high energy football and their players are expected to work incredibly hard. I don't see any of that in Pogba and while I think somebody like Klopp might have a better chance of getting Martial to buy into his ideas, he's shown little to make you really believe that he'd fit into that style of play either. And while the likes of Matic, Fellaini, Lukaku and a few others may have the tactical discipline, they don't have the physical or technical capabilities to play for a Klopp or Pep.
If Utd want to go for a manager in the style of a Pep, Klopp or Poch then there's going to need to be a big overhaul of the squad.
Soldato
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Spot on @BaZ87, I said on another forum that Mourinho has had enough transfer windows to mould this squad to what he wants, but consequently as a result there are players who couldn't play the type of football that a Pep, Klopp, Poch, etc would want to play. I can't see Fellaini, Matic, Lukaku, Pogba, or Martial being willing or able to play that type of football. Even in the absolute best-case scenario that we managed to tempt Poch to United in the summer, it's still going to take several transfer windows for him to mould the United squad to what he wants, and as you say it's questionable whether Poch would want the United job at the moment. He'd be taking on a team in complete disarray. The only thing that makes me think he'd go for it is that he'd get a much bigger budget than he's got at Spurs, plus the opportunity to make United relevant again could be quite tempting.
I disagree. The temperamental, lazy players were, by and large, left out yesterday, yet there was still no energy or cohesion. Personally I think Mourinho's methods are outdated and he's been left behind by the other top managers. If you look at the teams doing well this season in the prem there is a clear similarity in the way they play. All the other big sides play a high energy, high press style of football that starts from the strikers, in an effort to recover the ball or force the opponent into making mistakes at the back and they close the ball in groups of two or three, then when in possession they play out from the back and create and maintain width with either wingers who stay wide or full-backs/wing-backs who overlap. Mourinho's style of football might make United a decent cup team (if we were playing our best and had better CBs), but I don't think it will ever win us the prem.
I disagree. The temperamental, lazy players were, by and large, left out yesterday, yet there was still no energy or cohesion. Personally I think Mourinho's methods are outdated and he's been left behind by the other top managers. If you look at the teams doing well this season in the prem there is a clear similarity in the way they play. All the other big sides play a high energy, high press style of football that starts from the strikers, in an effort to recover the ball or force the opponent into making mistakes at the back and they close the ball in groups of two or three, then when in possession they play out from the back and create and maintain width with either wingers who stay wide or full-backs/wing-backs who overlap. Mourinho's style of football might make United a decent cup team (if we were playing our best and had better CBs), but I don't think it will ever win us the prem.
I pretty much agree with fez on this (and everyone else isn't far wrong either). The whole thing is a disaster.
There may not be a quick solution but just having Mourinho at the helm is doing damage week by week, to the club, the players, and ultimately the fans too who are sick of Mourinho and actually despairing each game. That can't be allowed to continue, surely. I personally don't look forward to our games now, it's a complete farce. Mourinho is doing a worse job than Moyes and LvG ever did, which isn't something I ever thought I'd say. Moyes was awful, but he was out of his depth and actually trying.
The hierarchy and direction of the club has for me become a separate issue now to Mourinho himself (aside from the fact they won't sack him yet). While that is ultimately to blame, Mourinho has completely lost control of everything.
There may not be a quick solution but just having Mourinho at the helm is doing damage week by week, to the club, the players, and ultimately the fans too who are sick of Mourinho and actually despairing each game. That can't be allowed to continue, surely. I personally don't look forward to our games now, it's a complete farce. Mourinho is doing a worse job than Moyes and LvG ever did, which isn't something I ever thought I'd say. Moyes was awful, but he was out of his depth and actually trying.
The hierarchy and direction of the club has for me become a separate issue now to Mourinho himself (aside from the fact they won't sack him yet). While that is ultimately to blame, Mourinho has completely lost control of everything.
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Would have been nice to see what LVG could have done given the players Jose had bought. Rashford and Martial were both his and both our only future prospects in this team. Could also include Shaw in that as he is our only real Left back. The rest Jose has brought in are mercenary junk tbh. Including Lukaku.
Caporegime
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We've got too many bad players. And the players we bought weren't good enough to fix the problem.
Simple really.
You can coach the lesser ones up a bit but it's 'temporary.
Simple really.
You can coach the lesser ones up a bit but it's 'temporary.
There's talk that Woodward and Mendes had meetings around the time of the Newcastle game, but couldn't agree on a settlement deal. I probably believe that.
Now this from Castles (the Gestifute mouthpiece): https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport...dible-cost-manchester-united-binning-13745483
Is it worth limping on for another 3 months to save £6m? I know it'll create some issues, but Carrick can manage as caretaker for now, it literally couldn't be any worse.
Now this from Castles (the Gestifute mouthpiece): https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport...dible-cost-manchester-united-binning-13745483
Is it worth limping on for another 3 months to save £6m? I know it'll create some issues, but Carrick can manage as caretaker for now, it literally couldn't be any worse.
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He’s gone!
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Gutted, he's gone 
He's probably thinking 'finally'
He's probably thinking 'finally'
Caporegime
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Zidane in? Would be awesome if the class of 92 could do something collectively however.
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