Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho claimed last week his squad needs MORE investment in order to keep up with the top European teams. Co-site expert Ollie Slack analyses why this is just pure laziness from the Portuguese who is not fulfilling his job title.
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has spent $491.5 million dollars on incomings throughout his tenure. It’s also worth noting two arrivals joined, without the club having to pay a transfer fee, but on extremely high wages. Zlatan Ibrahimovic signed on a free and Alexis Sanchez swapped places with Armenian Henrikh Mkhitaryan at Arsenal.
But still, the Portuguese-man said the team needs more investment in order to fill the gap between Manchester United and the European heavyweights such as Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus.
The debate was sparked after United’s 1-0 loss to Juventus last week. It was clear in his press conference after the game that manager Jose Mourinho was in, one of those moods when he started listing Juve’s talent:
"“They had Higuain, Mandzukic, Dybala but they want more. They want Ronaldo. They had Barzagli, Chiellini, Rugani, they are not happy, they want more.”"
Journalists in the room smelt blood and decided to delve deeper into Mourinho’s strange behaviour. Asked whether or not he felt Manchester United need further investment, Mourinho replied:
"“To go to the Juventus level? Barcelona level? Real Madrid level? How can you reach that level? Manchester City level? How can you reach this level? Yes, but it is not also easy because many of the players they belong to these top teams. So we work with what we have, we try to improve with what we have. Juventus was in a different level of quality, stability, experience and know-how.” [Sky Sports]"
This irks me a lot. The fact a manager is hoping to buy his way to success over coaching the quality he has got is lazy and arrogant. How does Jose Mourinho think managers in the low depths of English football have to cope when their club doesn’t have the luxury of millions to spend.
Managers of such, actually do their job properly, coaching and man managing their group, squeezing every bit of potential they have out of them. And I’m sure most would bite Jose’s hand off for the pool of players he has to choose from.
One thing this does indicate though is how much Jose doesn’t believe in the quality of players he’s got. How must the players themselves react to hearing that? “He doesn’t think I’m good enough, then why should I give my all for him come Saturday at three o’clock.”
I would be able to contemplate the idea of more money being spent had we seen an improvement in performances and results over the past three years, but we arguably played our best football when Mourinho first arrived and visiting goalkeepers were picking up Man of the Match awards for fun.
If United were playing at their maximum and just failing to get over that final hurdle in order to challenge for titles, then, of course, investment to take you to the next level may be required. But we haven’t seen any evidence of Jose Mourinho working with the players to improve their individual game and the performances of the team.
So as much as Jose labels the players not up to the capabilities of the elite, maybe he shouldn’t be one to call the shots when he has underperformed too. Rather than sit back and indicate that his players are not able to compete with Europe’s best, why can’t he try and come up with a system which gives his players the best possible chance of performing at that level.