The Jose Mourinho Appreciation Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
Manchester United have spent ~seven hundred and fifty~ million pounds in the transfer market post Fergie, and this manager, and this level of performance is the pinnacle of that... :D


'The Special One' has had his day in the sun, and should no longer be under employment at Manchester United, the under achievement by a squad, and team of this immense talent is absolutely tragic.
 
robfosters said:
So on average £112m a season. It’s not really earth shattering in today’s game.
Click to expand...

Not really when put like that but for a team that had just won the title £112m a season should keep them at the top quite comfortably, talking to some Man U fans over the last few days each and everyone of them is dismayed at how the club is being run at the moment 'rudderless ship' has been mentioned a few times.
 
a seas
Robbo said:
The club structure has to be sorted out, I agree, and I'm no fan of the Glazers or even Woodward (though he is good at his primary job).

However, the reality is that Mourinho has failed, you can't say the board haven't backed him properly at least until this summer window. His signings have been failures in general.
Click to expand...

There are mutterings that Pogba and Sanchez were not JM's choice. Given the length of time the Pogba deal in particular must have taken to get completed that one isn't a surprise at all.

IF this rumour is true, it has to be said the board hasn't really backed JM at all (in consideration to City, Liverpool especially)

I wouldn't be surprised at all if both of them were mainly signed because of twitter / South American market etc etc, don't get me wrong Im sure any manager would want Pogba after Juve, and no reason why not …….but Sanchez.....given his last 6-12 months at Arsenal latter is definitely debatable.

The board could have backed JM a lot more for the signings he wanted even if it was just a couple more experienced / older players. He may have been a rip-off because of the WC but JM was "happy" to accept Maguire but Ed just wouldn't go for it.

JM has a lot to answer for , no doubt, but Ed / the board isn't making it any easier (esp given the extension signed in Jan)

Maundie said:
Not really when put like that but for a team that had just won the title £112m a season should keep them at the top quite comfortably, talking to some Man U fans over the last few days each and everyone of them is dismayed at how the club is being run at the moment 'rudderless ship' has been mentioned a few times.
Click to expand...

City have spent £1.5BN in the last 10 years compared to Chelsea spending approx. 1Bn , and Liverpool and Man Utd spending approx. 900m (before this summer)

No 100m a season wouldn't keep anyone at the top quite comfortably at all esp given how depleted the squad was when Fergie left (nearly the whole squad required replacing)

You also have to consider how many transfers actually work out, not every transfer actually moves the team forward and even in Fergie's time that would be 30-40m at the very least not producing what was required for the team even if you subsequently got that investment (or most of it) back

That's without taking into account the fact that Utd routinely have had to pay over the odds for majority of their transfers just because its Utd , I wouldn't be at all surprised if out of that 900m Utd have paid £80-100m over the odds just because if their previous success.
 
Last edited:
Why is anybody trying to suggest that £560m over 6 summers isn't a lot of money? What's that based on? Only City, who spent around £100m (~£16m per season) more, have spent anything even close to that. At the very least it's more than double what any other PL side's spent, in fact what Mourinho has spent in the last 3 summers is more than what any side (other than City) have spent in the 6 summers since Fergie left Utd. Trying to suggest Utd haven't spent enough or Mourinho hasn't been backed is absolute bonkers. Utd's problem is that they've not spent very well over the last 6 summers - so many big money signings have flopped and as a result they've either been sold for peanuts or not been able to be sold at all.

It's how poorly Utd have spent over these years that's lead to the issues this summer. You can't keep going back to the board/owners and asking for more money to sign a CB when you've signed one in each of the previous summers and for one reason or another they've not worked out. Eventually they're going to lose faith in you and not going to be willing to pay over the odds to sign the player you want because they're worried that in 12 months that player's flopped too and you're going to ask for more money to sign another CB, all while you've got 5 senior international CB's sat on the books that you either can't sell or would have to sell for peanuts. This applies to any club & manager but never more than at Utd with the Glazers.

Something Neville and Carra said on MNF was that if you appoint Mourinho then you have to keep writing those cheques because that's the manager he is but the problem is that Utd never wanted Mourinho, he was a compromise because of what happened before. It's clear that Woodward/the Glazers have said enough is enough, they're not going to keep paying over the odds on signings and if they're going to spend big then the player really must be worth it/represent reasonable value (in other words not spending £60m on 29 year olds).

As for the comments about Utd needing a Director of Football. It really isn't as simple as that. There's no single right or wrong structure - the key is always on the quality of people in place and cruicially how well they work together. Liverpool have the exact same structure in place now as they did under Rodgers, with all the same people in the recruitment team - the difference between now and then is that we've now got a manager that's 100% on board and willing to work with them. With Rodgers everything was always a compromise and that was seen on the pitch. Look at how things ended with Conte at Chelsea under a similar set-up. Then contrast that to Spurs, where the main two men are very much Poch & Levy - not too dissimilar to Utd with Mourinho & Woodward. Having a Director of Football or any set-up similar to that is pointless unless you've got a manager that is willing to work in that structure.

As I said previously, Utd need to go back to the drawing board and decide on what they want. If they're happy to have a manager that leads the recruitment then appoint the best guy for that role and make sure he knows the financial constraints he's working under (can/can't he spend big money on players over the age of 27/28 etc) - he gets given a budget and he's given the freedom to identify and sign the players he wants. Or do they want somebody who's main focus is on coaching and managing the players he has? In which case they put in place a director of football type structure and then the DoF appoints the coach that's going to work under him, knowing exactly what his role is. Or is it going to be somewhere between the two, like what Liverpool have, where Klopp works together with the recruitment team? Whatever way Utd go they have to make sure that everybody knows what their responsibilities are and that they're happy to work in that set-up.
 
He's just bought bad players or old players. Or high maintenance ones like Pogba...

Now he needs more because the ones he bought are little better than what we had.

We've recruited terribly for the past 5-6 seasons.
 
BaZ87 said:
Why is anybody trying to suggest that £560m over 6 summers isn't a lot of money? What's that based on? Only City, who spent around £100m (~£16m per season) more, have spent anything even close to that. At the very least it's more than double what any other PL side's spent, in fact what Mourinho has spent in the last 3 summers is more than what any side (other than City) have spent in the 6 summers since Fergie left Utd. Trying to suggest Utd haven't spent enough or Mourinho hasn't been backed is absolute bonkers. Utd's problem is that they've not spent very well over the last 6 summers - so many big money signings have flopped and as a result they've either been sold for peanuts or not been able to be sold at all.

It's how poorly Utd have spent over these years that's lead to the issues this summer. You can't keep going back to the board/owners and asking for more money to sign a CB when you've signed one in each of the previous summers and for one reason or another they've not worked out. Eventually they're going to lose faith in you and not going to be willing to pay over the odds to sign the player you want because they're worried that in 12 months that player's flopped too and you're going to ask for more money to sign another CB, all while you've got 5 senior international CB's sat on the books that you either can't sell or would have to sell for peanuts. This applies to any club & manager but never more than at Utd with the Glazers.

Something Neville and Carra said on MNF was that if you appoint Mourinho then you have to keep writing those cheques because that's the manager he is but the problem is that Utd never wanted Mourinho, he was a compromise because of what happened before. It's clear that Woodward/the Glazers have said enough is enough, they're not going to keep paying over the odds on signings and if they're going to spend big then the player really must be worth it/represent reasonable value (in other words not spending £60m on 29 year olds).

As for the comments about Utd needing a Director of Football. It really isn't as simple as that. There's no single right or wrong structure - the key is always on the quality of people in place and cruicially how well they work together. Liverpool have the exact same structure in place now as they did under Rodgers, with all the same people in the recruitment team - the difference between now and then is that we've now got a manager that's 100% on board and willing to work with them. With Rodgers everything was always a compromise and that was seen on the pitch. Look at how things ended with Conte at Chelsea under a similar set-up. Then contrast that to Spurs, where the main two men are very much Poch & Levy - not too dissimilar to Utd with Mourinho & Woodward. Having a Director of Football or any set-up similar to that is pointless unless you've got a manager that is willing to work in that structure.

As I said previously, Utd need to go back to the drawing board and decide on what they want. If they're happy to have a manager that leads the recruitment then appoint the best guy for that role and make sure he knows the financial constraints he's working under (can/can't he spend big money on players over the age of 27/28 etc) - he gets given a budget and he's given the freedom to identify and sign the players he wants. Or do they want somebody who's main focus is on coaching and managing the players he has? In which case they put in place a director of football type structure and then the DoF appoints the coach that's going to work under him, knowing exactly what his role is. Or is it going to be somewhere between the two, like what Liverpool have, where Klopp works together with the recruitment team? Whatever way Utd go they have to make sure that everybody knows what their responsibilities are and that they're happy to work in that set-up.
Click to expand...

So what you mean is Man U need to apply some common sense :p
 
The problem at Man U is not that they've necessarily invested badly on an individual basis - it's that they've failed to recruit the right combination of players and management to get the best out of them. Almost everyone is under performing and it's mostly down to trying to put together a team with parts that don't fit, rather than just having broken parts.
 
It's a bit weird right now, Mourinho seems to be going to ever greater lengths to engage with the fans.

Woodward won't be going anywhere, he's effectively a Glazer and they love him, so Jose will lose out in any power struggle.

I'd like him to turn it around but I only see it ending one way at the moment. I don't think he's quite lost the players yet, at least not all of them.
 
I have no issue with Woodward doing the financial behind the scenes stuff but he shouldn't be involved with transfers beyond giving the manager or a DoF a budget. United have made huge improvements to their sponsorship and general financial position since he came on board but hes not a football man.
 
Moses said:
Tbf we don’t know if it’d be any better if he’d given Mourinho the purse strings. I mean, he opted for Bailly and Lindelof and ended up dropping them and wanting new CBs to replace them.
Click to expand...

Bailly is a good defender, he just needs someone decent next to him. Lindelof is looking like a bad buy though. I think that if anyone is honest, Mourinho is not likely to have looked over all the defenders in world football and said "buy me Bailly, Lindelof and Dalot".

Look at what City did to sort out their defence though. Hes bought:

Mendy - £52m
Ederson - £35m
Laporte - £57m
Stones - £47.5m
Danilo - £26.5m
Walker - £50m

Thats £268m on defenders over the last 2 years. When Guardiola decided his defence wasn't good enough City just said "buy a new one".

The only one of the above that had a real question mark over them was probably Ederson. The rest of them were either PL proven or clearly top defenders.

Since Mourinho has been at United we have bought:

Bailly - £30m
Dalot - £19m - perhaps one for the future
Lindelof - £30m

So thats ~£80m vs ~£270m

City buy relatively proven players and 6 of them and United buy 3 defenders who no one had heard of before we bought them.

Its not hard to see how Mourinho would get a little annoyed when he says his defence isn't good enough and this is what we buy him. I'm not saying Mourinho shouldn't be doing better with what he has got but something is going wrong with our recruitment policy. We seem to be happy to pay quite a lot of money for big gambles but not the next tier up for much more proven players. City have bought a new back line and keeper for £279m and we have bought ifs and maybes for £80m.
 
I've heard Castles do this sort of comparision of how much Utd have spent on their defenders, compared to City but like him you're ignoring the fact that Utd spent considerably more on other positions than City and City are stronger there too. You have to look at what's been spent as a whole - Utd/Mourinho chose to sign Bailly and Lindelof (he actually cost €45m, Benfica released the exact details of the fee) instead of more costly defenders and instead spent their money on far costlier midfielders and attackers. For example, City signed De Bruyne and Stones for less than Utd paid for Pogba and Bailly. City signed Laporte and Jesus for less than Utd paid for Lindelof and Lukaku.

Maybe had Utd not signed Pogba and Lukaku and instead bought players that are out performing both and cost considerably less then they too could have spent the difference on their defence.
Robbo said:
It's a bit weird right now, Mourinho seems to be going to ever greater lengths to engage with the fans.

Woodward won't be going anywhere, he's effectively a Glazer and they love him, so Jose will lose out in any power struggle.

I'd like him to turn it around but I only see it ending one way at the moment. I don't think he's quite lost the players yet, at least not all of them.
Click to expand...
He's not trying to engage with the fans. It's becoming a political battle and he's trying to manipulate the fans to side with him. All this nonsense post Spurs was calculated - every interview and press-conference was the same stuff about the fans are smart, they don't read newspapers or watch TV. It was the same with his actions after the Burnley game - it's all for effect to make out the supporters are with him

He snapped in the Spurs press-conference and you saw the real him when he was giving a speach about how great the fans were for standing by him/the team and one of the journos was brave enough to point out that lots of them left early. He reverted to type and had to tell everybody how special he was - a stark contrast to the selfless guy he claimed he was in the pre-match press-conference.

You're right though, he ultimately he can't win a battle with Woodward which is why he's not gone full out with his comments - he's made his frustrations clear and firmly pointed the finger at others but at the same time praised or complimented Woodward too. He's trying to get the fans onside to give him more leeway with results/performances and put more pressure on the board to give in to some of his demands.
fez said:
I have no issue with Woodward doing the financial behind the scenes stuff but he shouldn't be involved with transfers beyond giving the manager or a DoF a budget. United have made huge improvements to their sponsorship and general financial position since he came on board but hes not a football man.
Click to expand...

It's not that simple though is it. As I said earlier in the thread, Utd is run as a business and Woodward (via the Glazers) do not want to spend a penny more than they have to and a consequence of that is that they don't want Utd signing 27+ year old players for bing fees on a regular basis. Spending £50m on a 29 year old is completely different to spending £50m on a 22 year old.

The very best you can hope for is Woodward gives a budget to a manager or DoF but with guidelines on the age and profile of player they can and can't sign.
 
BaZ87 said:
He's not trying to engage with the fans. It's becoming a political battle and he's trying to manipulate the fans to side with him. All this nonsense post Spurs was calculated - every interview and press-conference was the same stuff about the fans are smart, they don't read newspapers or watch TV. It was the same with his actions after the Burnley game - it's all for effect to make out the supporters are with him

He snapped in the Spurs press-conference and you saw the real him when he was giving a speach about how great the fans were for standing by him/the team and one of the journos was brave enough to point out that lots of them left early. He reverted to type and had to tell everybody how special he was - a stark contrast to the selfless guy he claimed he was in the pre-match press-conference.

You're right though, he ultimately he can't win a battle with Woodward which is why he's not gone full out with his comments - he's made his frustrations clear and firmly pointed the finger at others but at the same time praised or complimented Woodward too. He's trying to get the fans onside to give him more leeway with results/performances and put more pressure on the board to give in to some of his demands.
Click to expand...

Oh I'm well aware of that. Ultimately performances on the pitch and results are what will influence the fans, I think the majority would like Jose to turn it around, but that's not particularly likely so at the moment the club is stuck.

As for the spending, I do understand Woodward's reluctance. Mourinho brought in two centre backs for £30m each, Bailly has the potential to be good if he can stay injury free, but Lindelof looks very dodgy. That being said, Alderweireld for £50m~ would have been a good bit of business considering Mourinho is the manager after all... he's never going to throw in a couple of 21 year olds.
 
BaZ87 said:
I've heard Castles do this sort of comparision of how much Utd have spent on their defenders, compared to City but like him you're ignoring the fact that Utd spent considerably more on other positions than City and City are stronger there too. You have to look at what's been spent as a whole - Utd/Mourinho chose to sign Bailly and Lindelof (he actually cost €45m, Benfica released the exact details of the fee) instead of more costly defenders and instead spent their money on far costlier midfielders and attackers. For example, City signed De Bruyne and Stones for less than Utd paid for Pogba and Bailly. City signed Laporte and Jesus for less than Utd paid for Lindelof and Lukaku.

Maybe had Utd not signed Pogba and Lukaku and instead bought players that are out performing both and cost considerably less then they too could have spent the difference on their defence.
Click to expand...

Thats completely ignoring what United had vs City when Pep and Mourinho showed up.

City had and still use:

Aguero
De Bruyne
Silva
Kompany
Fernandino
Sterling
Otamendi

Thats a selection of top quality players that still play a huge role in the Man City first XI.

Compare that to United:

DDG - top quality, has been a huge part of everything we have managed to do in the past 8 or so years
Rashford - jury is out. Can be great or completely useless
Martial - masses of potential but seems to have an attitude problem
Smalling - makes mistakes far too often and not great even ignoring the mistakes
Jones - see above and add regular injuries
Lingard - shouldn't be near the first XI but shows our lack of options in that position
Mata - has never looked good enough at United, slow, looses possession too easily. Very poor mans Silva
Valencia - alright right back, awful wing back, shouldn't be near the first XI but no good options
Shaw - injured and just getting back to what he was pre-injury
Herrera - would die for the club but a fairly limited footballer
Young - done a job but shouldn't be any more than backup
Rojo - rash and error prone, not good enough
Fellaini - A good plan B but another example of a player that shouldn't be at United and shows a complete lack of focus when it comes to building a team.

So you have City with a spine of world class players including one of the best strikers in the world along with 2 of the best midfielders in the world and then you have United with a single world class player in DDG.

Honestly Aguero, De Bruyne, Silva and Sterling (in form) would get into most sides in the world. DDG would be first choice almost anywhere but other than that we have a bunch of backup players. I would happily get rid of everyone on that United list bar DDG, Shaw and Martial. Some of them are squad players but all of them are very much in the mix for first XI places which is ridiculous.
 
Robbo said:
Oh I'm well aware of that. Ultimately performances on the pitch and results are what will influence the fans, I think the majority would like Jose to turn it around, but that's not particularly likely so at the moment the club is stuck.

As for the spending, I do understand Woodward's reluctance. Mourinho brought in two centre backs for £30m each, Bailly has the potential to be good if he can stay injury free, but Lindelof looks very dodgy. That being said, Alderweireld for £50m~ would have been a good bit of business considering Mourinho is the manager after all... he's never going to throw in a couple of 21 year olds.
Click to expand...
You want him to turn things around for the simple reason that you want Utd to be successful. I don't believe there's many Utd fans that want him to turn it around for his own sake, if there are then they are very much in the minority now.

As for Alderweireld and 'Mourinho is the manager after all', this is the root of the problem. Mourinho is not a Utd manager nor a Glazers manager - I never believed Utd would ever appoint him despite years of links from before Taggart retired and it took 3 seasons of disasters for you to appoint him. He's a compromise between getting where Utd want to be and how they want to go about getting there. You compromised because Utd needed to be in the CL on a regular basis and this is why the purse strings were a lot looser in the previous summers. As of the start of this season you appeared to be safe in the top 4 (not too many people predicted that you wouldn't make the CL again this season anyway) so why would the Glazers allow Mourinho to spend recklessly? City are so good that Utd could have spent £300m last summer and still not caught City so, from a business point of view, why would the Glazers spend a penny more than they needed, especially if they didn't believe the players they were signing represented good value if the two likely outcomes were finishing 2nd-4th and 10 points behind City or finishing 2nd-4th but 20+ points behind City.

Utd's reluctance to spend big on 28+ year olds is nothing new. Prior to Mourinho how many times did Utd spend any significant amount on a 28 year old or older since the Glazers arrived? I can only think of Van Persie. It's not exclusive to Utd either, you won't see Liverpool or Arsenal doing it too. In real terms it's far more expensive to spend £20m on a older player than a younger player and clubs factor age into deals.
 
fez said:
...
Click to expand...
First of all, you've completely missed the point. Regardless of how better or worse the two squads were when both managers arrived, I was responding to your argument that City have paid more on their defenders than Utd have and that being a defence of your poor defence. This argument is a nonsense. Utd chose those CB's and you can be 100% certain that when they drew up their list of targets, the fact that you were signing Pogba and Lukaku for £90m apiece was factored into who you could therefore go after. Utd and Mourinho have chose to concentrate their funds on other positions and when you choose to spend 2x as much on your central midfielder and striker than what rival clubs are spending, you cannot then complain that your rivals have spent more on CB's. Again, had Utd chose to only spend £50m each on central midfielders or strikers then you could have afford to sign 2 x £70m CB's - Utd/Mourinho chose not to though.

As for your post, I've been over this before. Utd and City finished on level points and lets not try to rewrite history regarding the perceived quality of the players you've listed. Prior to Pep/Mourinho arriving not a single Utd supporter is swapping Rashford for Sterling (the latter was verging on a flop in his first season at City), not a single Utd supporter is swapping Martial for KDB (remember KDB was playing as a wide attacker pre-Pep), Otamendi looked like a car crash defender (I'm not sure he's much better now, he just has less defending to do), Fernandinho was decent but nothing more, Kompany was and still is nothing more than a squad player due to his injuries, Silva imo looked on his way out (there was lots of speculation that he would be sold by Pep when he arrived) and like KDB was very much a front 3/4 player rather than the central midfielder he is today. The only player from City that you've listed that is still performing the same role and at the same level today as they were before Pep arrived is Aguero and you could probably argue that he's not as pivotal to City now as he was then. The City side that Pep took over, or at least the side that last competed for the league was based around Hart, Zabaleta, Clichy/Kolarov, Toure, Silva (in an attacking midfield role) and Aguero - only Aguero remains.

Yes City have spent £100m odd more than Utd in the past three summers since the two managers arrived (although most if not all of that is covered by Utd paying more in wages) but that only makes up part of the difference between where the two sides are now. Pep's improved players and in some cases transformed them into completely new players, playing new positions but he's also spent better. I said at the start of this thread, Utd have spent poorly - far too many players have flopped and even those that haven't, there's very few that you could argue have performed over and above what you'd expect for the fees you've paid. Lukaku and Matic haven't been flops but equally they've not been massive successes either. City (under Pep at least) have bought in players to fit a particular system and way of playing and these players have been pivotal to allowing City to play this way and produce the best PL season we may ever see. Utd on the other hand have had this scatter gun approach and 5 transfer windows later look no closer to competing for the title than wen Mourinho arrived.
 
I had assumed this was an old thread that had been resurrected, or an ironic one.

Surely there's no one out there that thinks Mourinho has done a good job at Man Utd except for Man City fans?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom