[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ootball is a simple game, former England striker Gary Lineker once said in a quip about the Germans always winning. So why does José Mourinho find it so complicated? More than 18 months into the job he always wanted, Mourinho has created an expensively assembled collection of individuals. The team is perpetually over the horizon.
It is a classic Ed Woodward deal. Manchester United’s imminent capture of Arsenal winger Alexis Sánchez will bring a star to Old Trafford in a transfer that includes eye-watering sums of money. It is also a deal that, just weeks ago, few on the Red side of Manchester countenanced. Sánchez was off to Manchester City, to join the collection of £50 million full-backs of whom José Mourinho is apparently so jealous. Then City dithered and Woodward stepped in. Far from a long-term plan, the deal for Sánchez highlights the short-term thinking that reverberates through United’s hierarchy.
[dropcap]J[/dropcap]osé Mourinho’s assertion that the £300 million he has spent since taking the Manchester United job in 2016 is “not enough” to compete in the Premier League is easy to mock. After all, he has been afford more investment in less than two full seasons than David Moyes or Louis van Gaal before him. More, indeed, than Sir Alex Ferguson over the Scots final few seasons at United. Yet, in the context of Manchester City’s generation of heavy spending, the Portuguese may well be right, though it hardly explains all United’s ills. How the club spends its money is far more of a challenge to bridging the gap to the rampant Blues.
“It is as bad as a defeat,” admitted José Mourinho after Leicester City scored a last-minute equaliser at the King Power Stadium on Saturday night. Manchester United created the best chances and spent 20 minutes with a man advantage, yet left the East Midlands feeling despondent. Two disastrous results inside three days will do that. As for José: he threw his players under the bus. Twice.
Michael Carrick did not feature in Manchester United’s handsome victories at Watford or Arsenal. The 35-year-old is still regaining fitness after a spell on the sidelines following detection of a worrying heart condition back in September. One suspects that the veteran midfielder will be enjoying the performances of fellow Englishmen Ashley Young and Jesse Lingard though; two revivalists enjoying life under José Mourinho. Not just because of Young’s successful reinvention as a decent left-back, or Lingard’s ascent to become United’s number 10, but the way each has transformed to get ahead. After all, Carrick is an avid student of the game.
José Mourinho’s side never recovered from October’s international break, or more specifically, autumn’s momentum was shattered as the Portuguese sent his high-flying team out to defend at Anfield on 14 October. In the interim Mourinho’s side has failed to convince in any of the six league and cup fixtures since the bore draw on Merseyside. Victory over Tottenham Hotspur was hard-won, but defeats to Huddersfield Town and Chelsea have left United well off the Premier League pace. As November’s break comes to a close, the Reds face 13 fixtures between now and the end of the year. It’s a period that won’t make United’s season, but it could certainly break it.
We’ll always have Wembley and Stockholm. Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s late header, Paul Pogba’s long-range strike, Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s flicked finish. These are the feel-good moments that football fans savour – the stuff from which memories are made. They’ll be more of these moments under José Mourinho. After all, he has spent a career hoovering up trophies. Mourinho has also spent much of the past two decades combusting in the most spectacular fashion. It’s never a good look and the writing for José’s Manchester United future is already on the wall.
It has a been a tough couple of weeks at Manchester United. First, that limp draw with Liverpool at Anfield, then the narrow but unsatisfying victory over Benfica, and finally that traumatic defeat at Huddersfield Town last weekend. Victory over Swansea City in the League Cup ensured that the wheels didn’t come off United’s season, but the positivity associated with the new campaign has rapidly dissipated. It is not a good sign ahead of Tottenham Hotspur’s visit to Old Trafford on Saturday.
Swansea City away in the everybody’s least favourite tournament, on a cold, probably wet, Tuesday night in the pretty shitty city is nobody’s description of a must win game. Must win it is though after José Mourinho’s plans threatened to turn south over the past week. Manchester United’s dispiriting draw at Anfield, narrow win at Benfica, and gutless defeat to Huddersfield Town, have tongues wagging at Old Trafford. Mourinho will ring the changes for the League Cup tie at Swansea, but anything other than a comfortable victory will create added pressure ahead of Tottenham Hotspur’s visit to Old Trafford at the weekend.
When Manchester United run out at the Estádio da Luz on Wednesday travelling supporters may well witness a very different approach from the one that dominated the weekend’s game with Liverpool. On Saturday, with the world watching one of England’s great fixtures, José Mourinho’s side sunk into its shell, hamstrung by a manager who has made a career-long reputation as the “enemy of football.” It was to United’s loss: two points dropped, momentum halted, an opposition there for the taking, given a pass.