"Jose hasn’t helped himself."
The last Manchester United manager’s epitaph was uttered before his final season began in the United States. During an exchange with a reporter in July, a senior staff member reflected the club‘s view of Mourinho’s narked behaviour in a turbulent pre-season tour which was the precursor to another bout of third season syndrome.
A United player remarked the manager was 'in such a bad mood' at the UCLA campus and the tension was palpable when a staff member rebuked a photographer for innocuously treading onto the Drake Stadium pitch United were training on. A time-served observer noted: "It's like a dysfunctional family."
We were reassured Mourinho was 'in a very good mood' and there were no issues with the executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward. In the City of Angels, it evoked memories of LA Confidential's opening monologue: "You'd think this place was the Garden of Eden. But there's trouble in paradise."
Mourinho’s mood worsened at United. His frustrations with Woodward dated back to the waiting game that played out as Louis van Gaal clung on for the remainder of the 2015-16 campaign. Mourinho was rattled by what he perceived to be a delayed appointment at a time that Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid were considering him. Woodward knew what he was getting into.
United and Mourinho is a modern Shakespeare tale of power struggles, infighting, undermining, briefing and counter-briefing. Manager and board were seldom singing from the same hymn sheet and, as is often the case with Mourinho, it spiralled spectacularly. Woodward knew what he was getting into.
The inference from Portuguese sources is Mourinho revelled in the pre-season press conferences so he could exert pressure on Woodward, only Woodward did not buckle and their relationship became tense across the Atlantic. Woodward attended the first and last friendlies in Phoenix and Miami and his absence irked Mourinho, who had repeatedly demanded a sit down as the early Premier League deadline of August 9 loomed. Woodward apologetically informed Mourinho he was 'busy' before it ultimately transpired he had overruled him on certain targets.
United's view is that Mourinho was sufficiently backed in the transfer market with the £358.7million he spent on 11 players and the investment was not reflected on the pitch. It emerged on Tuesday morning there were issues with form, issues with the style of play and issues with the lack of development at youth level. These were reservations many United supporters harboured upon Mourinho's appointment in 2016. Woodward knew what he was getting into.
The United hierarchy expressed a sudden aversion to Mourinho's 'short-termism' in the market on the eve of the season and Mourinho felt 'absolutely undermined' by Woodward's refusal to sign a centre half. The face-saving extended to influential United suits deriding fall-back target Jerome Boateng's injury record. Mourinho privately intimated the situation had become so untenable he would have quit if he were at another club.
You got the impression Mourinho was only happy if he was unhappy. On camera, he was confrontational and spiky, off it, he was more approachable; he shook hands with us English journalists in Los Angeles prior to his first press conference and offered the odd pat on the back. At Carrington in August, he fist-bumped a reporter in what was an ambiguous but amiable gesture. The United staff were more accustomed to a charmless man rather than a charming one.
United's gravest error with Mourinho was they did not overrule Sir Alex Ferguson's anointment of substitute teacher David Moyes in 2013. Forget the rhetoric and revisionism, had they given Mourinho what he wanted back then United may not be in the midst of their longest championship drought since the 26 years between 1967 and '93. The landscape was ripe for Mourinho to ride roughshod over and when United turned to him three years later the terrain was rockier; Liverpool had Jurgen Klopp rather than Brendan Rodgers, Pep Guardiola was across town, Tottenham were a credible force and Chelsea were jolted by Antonio Conte.
Woodward was able to pass the buck onto Ferguson over Moyes but he is highly culpable for the mess he is now in the process of cleaning up, with three appointments planned in the coming months; an interim coach, a head of footballl and a permanent manager.
Mourinho wanted two more players in and three out (Marcos Rojo, Matteo Darmian and Anthony Martial) in the summer and was denied. The recipe was already sprinkled with the ingredients for a disaster before it was laced with vitriol.
"Everything is s**t," Mourinho could be heard indiscreetly lamenting during a phone call in the States. He evidently did not care who was within earshot; the first words he uttered about United in July were 'our pre-season is very bad' and it just got worse. A number of United employees who dealt with Mourinho remarked how 'difficult' he was to work with.
Mourinho and Woodward got off on the wrong foot over two years ago. A month after Mourinho posed with the United shirt at their Mayfair office in May 2016 he was privately complaining Woodward was 'dropping the ball' and dismayed by their failure to conclude a deal for recent Bayern Munich signing Renato Sanches. United claimed at the time Van Gaal did not want the Portuguese midfielder yet that was a smokescreen, so convinced were they that Sanches' arrival while Van Gaal was in charge would have been a giveaway they had Mourinho teed up.
That summer was a success yet United made their bed with Mino Raiola by agreeing to the Henrikh Mkhitaryan makeweight sandwiched between Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba. Mourinho was also unable to recruit Jose Fonte from Southampton as Marcos Rojo dug his heels in. Coincidentally, United's failure to jettison the stubborn Rojo this summer partly prevented them from signing the centre half Mourinho coveted.
Roy Keane lived by the mantra 'fail to prepare, prepare to fail' and that could be levelled at the current board. Mourinho was so sceptical of Woodward's market inexperience he provided transfer lists months in advance of the summer windows opening, even drafting up separate sheets in 2017 in the event United failed to qualify for the Champions League.
At Carrington, the staff who were accustomed to the zany Van Gaal's warmth were in for a culture shock. A source at United's training base said employees were divided between 'those who fear Mourinho and those who simply hate him'. He meant it as a compliment but as time passed by the comment took on a more disparaging tone. Plenty of players opposed Mourinho's possible appointment, with many advocates for Ryan Giggs and one idealistic squad member hopeful Luis Enrique would come under consideration.
Mourinho was dismissive of the Toshiba-sponsored rehabilitation machines Ferguson was an advocate of and preached players would enhance their fitness by playing. One coach joked such short-term planning indicated Mourinho would continue his three-year cycle at United. How prescient. A source felt Mourinho 'created quite a bit of discomfort and uncertainty'. One employee who had a run-in with Mourinho vowed: "I'll be here long after he's gone."
The squad welcomed the initial managerial bounce. A friend of David de Gea's admitted in September 2016 he had 'never sounded more optimistic about life at United' and Mourinho had made it his priority to kill off Real Madrid's lingering interest in the Spaniard. Mourinho's departure leaves United at risk of botching De Gea's contract renewal, which has become unexpectedly protracted amid uncertainty over his Jorge Mendes stablemate's future. Michael Carrick and other senior players were effusive about Mourinho's methods and rules, such as his fixed day off regulation, and buoyed by the new regime.
Mourinho played the politics perfectly in his first season. He sided with Marcus Rashford over Wayne Rooney after a training ground tiff and the intention all along was to gradually phase Rooney - a Giggs disciple - out over the course of 2016-17. The emotional Europa League triumph - two days after the Manchester Arena attack - sealed a successful season of two major trophies and Champions League qualification.
Only trouble had begun brewing. Just like the summer gone, Mourinho craved two centre halves in the January 2017 window yet had a realistic chance of getting just one. Complications emerged over the sell-on clause Vasteras would be due from Benfica if and when they sold Victor Lindelof. United parked a deal and cited the form of Rojo and Phil Jones; an axis that lasted two months until injury interrupted their alliance. Jose Gimenez was deemed too expensive (a recurring theme with Mourinho targets) and was the former United manager's preferred option.
Mourinho would have to become accustomed to being overruled and, as recently as this season, he was still bemoaning United's failure to sign Ivan Perisic last year. United had a final bid of £40million rejected by Internazionale and club sources indicated the Italian club 'just did not want to sell' the Croatia international. Mourinho's version of the story was United refused to sanction additional funds for Perisic since they did not believe he was a marketable enough player to merit a £50m transfer. Perisic scored in the World Cup semi-final and final after a season where Mourinho sporadically despaired at left-sided duo Marcus Rashford and Martial's supposed inconsistency.
Martial hammered his own nail into Mourinho's coffin despite his recent upturn in form. Initially, Mourinho was sympathetic towards the Frenchman, whose domestic issues had compromised his focus at the start of Mourinho's reign, yet come the last pre-season he unloaded on him so mercilessly his comments to MUTV caused visible concern among club staff. When Mourinho was reminded that Martial's agent had clarified the Frenchman wanted to leave, he let it be known he was open to selling him.
Only United were not. They opened negotiations with Martial's representatives over a new contract early in the season, another act of defiance against a manager they refused to back in the summer, and on Monday triggered the one-year extension in Martial's deal. Siding with player over manager.
United also refused to publicly support Mourinho in his power struggle with the insubordinate Paul Pogba. Mourinho was so apoplectic with Pogba after the 1-0 defeat at Newcastle in February he lamented his attitude in front of another United first-teamer he considered to be a loyalist. Mourinho questioned Pogba's selfishness and accused him of individualism just as their working relationship began to deteriorate in front of and away from the camera lenses.
Mourinho abandoned his transparency tactic to insist there were 'no problems' with the substituted Pogba at St James's Park, only the France international was unwell. At one stage earlier this year, Mourinho is said to have asked an employee of a sponsor how they would react if he properly dropped Pogba. Mourinho daren't admit it out of fear of compromising his stance, but always felt Raiola was more of an issue than Pogba, who danced to his advisor's tune.
Pogba and Mourinho held a meeting in the wake of the Brighton debacle in August where they thrashed out a détente as a schism threatened to upset the dressing room. Pogba was empowered by the Zinedine Zidane speculation and the club's stance on Martial had also weakened Mourinho's position, yet Mourinho was privately confident about Pogba following his impressive World Cup performances and hoped the second captain role would help him mature. That olive branch was snapped in two by Pogba, who deleted a tweet that read 'Caption this' within minutes of the Mourinho announcement..
As positive a market as United had in 2017, Lindelof and Nemanja Matic were not Mourinho's ideal targets (Gimenez and Eric Dier were) while Romelu Lukaku was mainly made possible by Antoine Griezmann's rejection. United had won 10 of their opening 12 matches, drawing the other two, when Mourinho incongruously fluttered his eyelashes at Paris Saint-Germain in October. High-level United sources dismissed it as a 'bit of fun' and 'too early' to discuss a renewal. That was in November. Come January, the club rewarded Mourinho with a salary increase and one-year extension.
Mourinho had started complaining about a lack of backing in the spring of last year, still smarting from the Perisic collapse as Manchester City began to pull away. PSG touched base with Mendes and Mourinho demanded United 'step up' in the transfer market amid his interest in a 'magician' forward to offset the Griezmann rebuffal. He got Alexis Sanchez.
United sources insisted at the time they did not have to operate via a sell-to-buy policy yet Mourinho felt constrained by a de facto budget. Van Gaal spent more in a single summer than Mourinho ever did and the Portuguese told friends in Lisbon last October he was 'fed up of competing with a state' - namely Abu Dhabi. Still, Mourinho knew he had spent enough - £358.7m over three windows - for it to be his reputation on the line rather than Woodward's.
The January contract renewal was a corrosive catalyst, for six days later the emboldened Mourinho hauled off Pogba in the limp defeat to Tottenham at Wembley. That night was maybe the beginning of the end. Zlatan Ibrahimovic's effective absence from the playing side was a pivotal factor; United players were uplifted by the presence he and Pogba brought to the dressing room and the dynamic became more egocentric without Ibrahimovic to keep the younger players in check.
Coaching sources also suggested Rui Faria, who left Mourinho's side after a 17-year working relationship from Leiria to Manchester, had found it increasingly difficult to carry out his role due to Mourinho's mood. Chelsea staff familiar with Mourinho from his first spell noticed that, upon his return, Mourinho's demeanour was 'completely different' and found him 'sourer and more arrogant', traits he brought to United. Faria, once Mourinho's attack dog, doubled as the good cop at Carrington.
"I wouldn't really want to get into that, to be honest with you," a senior United figure told this correspondent when recently asked about the mood at the club. Some staff members are said to have disapproved of the 'not even 30 per cent of my squad' comment in Ann Arbor in July and it was maybe not a coincidence Mourinho lavished praise on United's homegrown identity in the final leg of the tour. Still, the lack of faith in youngsters was cited among the reasons for his dismissal.
In early 2018, members of the United hierarchy started to become weary of Mourinho's idiosyncracies. A Premier League club director remarked how members of the United board 'hated' Mourinho, who got wind of the backchat and smugly replied 'this is now Mourinho United'. The contract renewal was down to Woodward, who 'really likes him', it emerged at the time.
Before the Sevilla scandal in March, Mourinho had decided on a mini squad overhaul where he intended to discard six players. Woodward received a call from Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy about Martial and Juan Mata, Italian clubs were interested in Darmian and Everton were keen on Rojo. Rather than take the odd hit in an inflated market, Woodward resisted, denying Mourinho the leverage to replace them. Diogo Dalot and Fred were routine additions due to their release clauses.
Post-Sevilla, Mourinho accepted the tide had turned and suspected some had been clutching blades behind his back since the moment he was appointed. A gaggle of fans chanted 'F**k off Mourinho' outside Wembley after the FA Cup final. He had become more conflictive with staff and contrary in his press conferences, where his mood was disarmingly upbeat in the wake of defeats. In his last appearances at Carrington, Mourinho could be heard beaming about the weather. Too often it rained.
United's subdued summer window made Mourinho's departure more imminent than inevitable. Mourinho had concluded midway through last season the defence was so reliant on De Gea's astounding agility he often resorted to two holding midfielders in front of the back four. Without the necessary reinforcements, United have become more porous.
Internazionale outpriced United over the £76m-rated Milan Skriniar and, as Woodward failed to make headway over Toby Alderweireld or Harry Maguire, it emerged Mourinho was prepared to go nuclear with his defensive trident by using central midfielders as auxiliary centre-backs. Tottenham scored more goals goals at Old Trafford than they had managed in the last five years against a defence which featured Ander Herrera. Up the other end, Alderweireld neutered Lukaku in front of the watching Woodward. Scott McTominay and Nemanja Matic also played in back threes.
The day after the Spurs capitulation in August, Adidas unveiled the new pink away kit at a farcical launch where newspapers were denied access to coverage for a shirt designed in homage to a newspaper. At the Market Street event, club ambassadors Bryan Robson and Denis Irwin were forbidden from answering questions on Mourinho as first-team players were pulled from appearing.
Mourinho had alienated most of them by then. Only a handful; Ashley Young, Nemanja Matic, Marouane Fellaini and Lukaku, were not explicitly rebuked by Mourinho in public and they share similar characteristics. McTominay's ascension under Mourinho is believed to have perplexed some of the Scotland international's former youth teammates, with one remarking 'no one sees what he has'.
That tendency to single out players deprived Mourinho of significant allies in a dressing room that was almost unanimous in its desire for a new coach 10 games into the current campaign. At Southampton at the start of the month, his pre-match meeting was so caustic a senior player returned to Manchester and shrugged that Mourinho had lost 90 per cent of the squad's support. As early as last week, one player told a confidant he was 'not going to be around much longer'.
That Antonio Valencia 'liked' an Instagram post demanding for Mourinho's removal on the eve of the Newcastle comeback as he killed time in The Lowry highlighted Mourinho's inability to control a coterie of upstarts. Eighteen months earlier, he had warned United players not to use social media in the build-up to matches, a guideline that was strictly obeyed at the time. Come the end, he was being treated like a substitute teacher.
Mourinho didn't help himself.
