José Mourinho, Manchester United And The Hens That Come Home To Roost

Few images quite captured the current quagmire at Old Trafford than that of José Mourinho and Ed Woodward during Manchester United’s calamitous capitulation to Tottenham Hotspurs at Old Trafford this past Monday.

Right after the final whistle, Mourinho sauntered to the Stretford End, towards the die-hards who had endured the disgrace to the very end and began an exhibition of hand-clapping apparently seeking exculpation from the garland of thorns he’d willfully gnarled around his own neck. The other spectacle though was of a certain Mr Woodward, red-faced and close to apoplectic at the audacious celerity with which his Manchester United project was unravelling before the eyes of the world…

For José Mourinho, it is hard to feel anything beyond a patronizing sense of pity for a man whose self-adulating antics has unwittingly turned out to be acts of self-immolation. For a man consumed by the allure of his own personally contrived theatre, the drama for him has become an unanticipated tragicomedy, but to his critics an unscripted schadenfreude.

Initially, it appeared that the floodgates of new signings had opened. Apparently, it wasn’t to be. The World Cup, Russia 2018 was to provide an interim distraction to the goings-on behind the scene at Old Trafford. Unknown to only but a few, Ed Woodward and José Mourinho were at cross-roads with regards to new signings.

Manchester United’s United States tour would provide the stage for the opening gambits in the nascent feud between the two, a power tussle that the club desperately tried to no avail to hide from the public eye.

Mourinho’s constant nagging about not having his preferred players and his constant thinly veiled denigration of those he took to the tour in spite of the fact that he was aware the World Cup had taken its toll on the availability of players. His persistently dour demeanour and grating, negative utterances suggesting a gloomy outlook for the 2018/2019 season was perplexing if not annoying too many. More so when rival clubs also were faced with the same problem of not having the full complement of their first team personnel.

Not for long did Mourinho’s confounding posturing last. His complaints finally emerged were merely a red herring that was intended to disguise his mischievous attempt to blackmail the executive vice-chairman into playing into his hands, in effect a ploy to appropriate power to himself. Woodward wasn’t buying into that and the canny business man in him could tell a power grab when he saw one.

Woodward’s hesitancy about signing new players is justified and should be the first baby steps towards a new paradigm at Manchester United, which also include his renewed interest in revamping the academy football. Given that he’d spent close to £400m in signings during the Mourinho era alone with little to show for it, he is right to question the value of the returns the club is making on its investment.

There’s no more bitter a reminder to this than the Alexis Sanchez transfer from Arsenal. The club was probably cajoled into hijacking Sanchez out of Manchester City’s grasp. If the objective had been to deny City the chance to further cement their grip on the PL, the signing would have been understandable; but not the deification of the player that followed.

The disastrous consequences of the financial package and the special treatment afforded their new signing was the schism that has since torn the team apart. In one fell swoop, the Sanchez signing introduced a team imbalance and angst, especially among the forward players. A team which had come through the hectic holiday period reasonably well, parading a more smiling Anthony Martial, a resurgent super-sub in Marcus Rashford and with a promise of an evolving legend in “Messi” Lingard, aside from the burgeoning stature of Paul Pogba, suddenly became a pack of disjointed and disgruntled individuals.

The subsequent losses the team faced especially to Spurs at Wembley and shameful Champions League exit at the hands of Sevilla FC at home were apparently, for Woodward an indelible testimony to what a hastily arranged signing could do to the ambitions of Manchester United. This must have been his wake-up call, a warning to be circumspect regarding new signings, not merely to save money but more importantly to preserve the integrity of the team.

Perhaps, as a result of the politics of his accession to the corporate headship of MUFC, for which two club colossus, David Gill and Sir Alex Ferguson had to pay the price, Woodward has possibly been seeking the quickest route to the success his predecessors had bequeathed on United. He has been undisputedly a success in the commercial angle, however the quest for the holy grail of club competition – the PL and the Champion’s League has since proved elusive, unwittingly providing another sombre illustration of the traditional déjà vu that accompanies the end of the reign of the great managerial icons in the history of Manchester United.

Woodward must cast aside the ghosts that haunt his leadership of MUFC and firmly return to time-worn club traditions, albeit in the light of contemporary commercial realities. The plans for the appointment of a director of football to act as a nexus between the traditional ideals of MUFC and its commercial aspirations is as welcome an idea as it is one whose implementation demands immediacy.

Plus there’s no sense in paying truck-loads of money for Sergej Milinkovic-Savic when there’s an emerging similar superstar like Scott McTominay, or in pursuing Toby Alderweireld when Tim Fosu-Mensah can be groomed to do the job. This is no mere idle romanticizing; the great footballers of the modern era, the Xavi’s Iniesta’s and Messi’s were not purchased with mind-boggling fees. Even the icon Cristiano Ronaldo would readily confess that his greatness was due largely to Sir Alex’s nurturing than to his prowess.

As for José Mourinho, his power grab having failed spectacularly whatever authority or prestige he had among the players has grossly diminished. His exit from the club is imminent despite concerted attempts by brown-envelope punditry to prop him up. José Mourinho has become a man whose transition from the ‘The Special One’ to ‘The Specious One’ has been subtle and unannounced, a manager whose tactics and gung-ho approach to his job has become outdated to the point of irrelevance.

Irrespective of United’s victory at Turf Moor, his days at Old Trafford are now numbered and perhaps his top-flight managerial career will surely be questioned. Yet it is not beyond his capacities to recreate himself, for his genius, albeit bordering on the eccentric is undisputed. However, his greatest battle will be with himself: to reign in the demons that hurl him at raging torrents and dash him against the rocks in three-year cycles, while ensuring that he dusts himself off and departs with a fat paycheck.