"At the end of the day, when you’re in the s--t, you get back on your feet and find your character. But there are people in this locker room who are a bit too nice, a bit too weak."
Jose Mourinho was referring to his Roma players who forfeited a 3-1 lead against Juventus seven days ago though it could have been mistaken for a blunt assessment of Manchester United's serial underachievers.
Mourinho's comments were aired six days before United snatched a draw from the clutches of victory at Aston Villa. Yesteryear, Villa would lead United 2-0 at Villa Park, a death knell for the home side that would herald United's resuscitation. Now the roles are reversed.
The result was overshadowed by Ralf Rangnick clarifying Anthony Martial had declined the opportunity to be selected in the matchday squad. Since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, Martial is the only known United player to have been fined (under Mourinho).
The mask has slipped with Martial. The Stretford End will think twice about serenading him and not just because the lyrics ought to be changed to 'Tony Martial, scorned again'.
Martial was one of the United players the club sided with against Mourinho and all it has succeeded in is empowering millennial players over the manager, denuding Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick of any credible authority.
"F--k him," Mourinho is believed to have told Ed Woodward amid his insistence on selling Martial after he went AWOL during the 2018 tour of the United States. Mourinho expected Martial to fly back across the Atlantic to Detroit, where United were playing Liverpool in their penultimate friendly in Michigan. Martial remained in Paris and Mourinho unloaded in an incendiary interview with MUTV that club staff tried to prevent from airing after the 4-1 thrashing in The Big House.
Mourinho got wind the club had briefed Martial was not for sale when he was of the opposite opinion on account of the player's agent, Philippe Lamboley, outlining his client's wish to leave. Joel Glazer quashed any attempt to jettison Martial, fined for staying in France.
Club and manager were on different pages but Mourinho played Woodward's game, highlighting Martial's high resale value at the time. Now it is low.
United have danced to Martial's tune enough too often. Martial and Lamboley used the club publicly, downplaying the chances of a new contract only to sign one 45 days later. United had sacked Mourinho in between, you see.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Alexis Sanchez and Edinson Cavani, more seasoned forwards, all arrived to put Martial's nose out of joint. He posted passive aggressively on social media after Ibrahimovic revoked the number nine from him and Lamboley demanded a transfer four months after the Sanchez deal. That's Martial: a bit too weak.
"When you are almost alone, in that you don’t have the support of the club close to you, while certain players go somewhat against the coach, who is the nice guy?" Mourinho told L'Equipe in May 2019. "I don’t want to be the nice guy, because the nice guy, after three months, is a puppet and that doesn’t end well." Specifically, with a 4-1 humbling at Watford.
Here's a role-play: you are the de facto chief executive of United , the team has just finished second in the Premier League with the highest points total in five years and runners-up in the FA Cup. Manchester City are the centurion champions and Liverpool have paid world-record fees to sign a defender and goalkeeper. What do you do?
Do you:
A. Back the manager you rewarded with a new three-year contract in January with reinforcements for a credible championship challenge in the summer transfer window?
Or, B: Limit him to one significant signing, disregard two priority targets, veto his signing recommendations and avoid face-to-face interaction during the pre-season tour.
You know what Ed Woodward did. The manager was not backed in the summer and then sacked in the winter. Just consider United's spending over five summers:
2014: £151.5million
2015: £106.5m
2016: £145.3m
2017: £140.9m
2018: £73.2m
If it was a graph it would resemble the period encompassing the Roaring Twenties and the Wall Street Crash. Mourinho had funds for three players in each of his three summers in charge and saw an inexplicable drop-off of £67.7m from his second.
His assessment of the malaise at United during and after his residency at The Lowry ended has proven prescient. "The problems are still there," Mourinho said in the chat with L'Equipe . "You can imagine that it is the players, the organisation, the ambition."
Mourinho is hardly absolved of blame. His recruitment was patchy and there was an over-reliance on physical figureheads in the team's spine. He took a punt on Victor Lindelof and before Lindelof's competitive debut Mourinho was so startled by the Swede's form in pre-season he sought assurances from his Portuguese contacts.
His antagonistic man-management turned the majority in the dressing room against him when he could have defused the ticking time bombs. Bernardo Silva and Fabinho were attainable options that were ignored and United underachieved in Mourinho's two full league seasons by finishing sixth and then 19 points adrift of City, so distant they resembled a mirage.
Mourinho was still a manager the matchgoers could truly follow. They never turned against him or specifically booed him, as they did with Louis van Gaal and Solskjaer. They chanted, 'Jose's right, the board is s---e'.
At Burnley in September 2018, a triumphant Mourinho clenched his fist, punched the air and clapped the supporters before he hurdled the advertising hoardings and handed his jacket to a delighted 12-year-old. Some reached out to brush Mourinho's hair or graze his face, as though he were a Messianic figure. On his return to Old Trafford as a pundit, United supporters chanted his name and he blew them kisses.
A former United player tells a story about Mourinho instructing Marcus Rashford not to rendezvous with the rest of the squad at Stockport Station ahead of the 2017 FA Cup quarter-final at Chelsea. Photographers captured the entire squad prior to boarding the train to Euston and news of Rashford's unexpected absence caused a tremor. Zlatan Ibrahimovic was suspended and Wayne Rooney and Martial were injured. Only Rashford was on the train. He boarded at Macclesfield Station in an attempt to lull Chelsea into a false sense of security.
The ruse did not work - Chelsea won - although Rashford was foiled by Thibaut Courtois in a one-on-one deep into the second-half. Mourinho, like United in the glory years, was a stickler for a siege mentality.
It is mythical to suggest United erred in hiring Mourinho. The mistake United made was not to overrule Sir Alex Ferguson's blinkered anointment of David Moyes in 2013. Had they appointed Mourinho, the landscape was ripe for United to ride roughshod over and achieve short-term success by maximising an ageing squad.
Had they got Mourinho Chelsea couldn't have got him. Arsenal were also-rans under Arsene Wenger, Brendan Rodgers had not assembled a Liverpool squad seemingly capable of challenging and Tottenham turned to Tim Sherwood that season. The sole threat would have been from City and Manuel Pellegrini.
Three years later, the landscape had changed. Mauricio Pochettino made Tottenham a force, Liverpool were galvanised by Jurgen Klopp, City were about to hit the mainstream with Pep Guardiola and Chelsea turned to Antonio Conte.
Three finals, two trophies and a second-place finish was not a success but a reasonable return from Mourinho and the efficacy of his recruits is higher than his predecessor and successor. No one within the United hierarchy belittles Mourinho's recruitment record anymore.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic suffered second season syndrome but was a one-season wonder who pilfered 28 goals. Eric Bailly was a £30million bargain on the evidence of his indomitable first campaign and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, though a domestic dud, was instrumental to the Europa League triumph - United's zenith in the last eight years.
Alexis Sanchez was a busted flush, Romelu Lukaku a mixed bag, Lindelof has been a respectable addition and so has Nemanja Matic. Diogo Dalot, billed as United's 'next right-back for 10 years' by Mourinho, is currently preferred to the £50m misfit Aaron Wan-Bissaka and United are invariably better with Fred than without him.
Mourinho's predilection with Scott McTominay in 2017-18 was peculiar but had merit and it is a quirk of United's midfield imbalance McTominay has been untried in the deep-lying role he occupied under Mourinho.
Mourinho coveted a centre half and a right winger in his final summer and it was the subservient Solskjaer who was furnished with the esteemed Raphael Varane and Jadon Sancho three years later.
United pandered to Paul Pogba by replacing Mourinho with a substitute teacher of a replacement who first managed Pogba when he was a teenager in the reserves. Pogba embarked on winter getaways to Dubai when injured in 2019 and 2021 that he would not have requested if Mourinho was his superior.
Solskjaer tied himself in knots with an inconsistent injury timeline and on the day he said Pogba had been 'struck down ill' the Frenchman was filmed dancing at his brother's wedding in Paris. Solskjaer reset the culture by enabling player power with management the players felt was 'soft'.
Luke Shaw benefited from the micro-management on the 2018 tour that was almost entirely devoid of World Cup participants and started the season impressively, acknowledging in a press conference Mourinho's tough love was warranted.
Shaw was still embarrassed to collect the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year award and only enjoyed his finest season when competition was provided by Alex Telles. United sources claimed the club had tracked Telles since 2014, which was news to Mourinho.
Those with long memories at United might have winced at Rangnick's assessment of Joao Moutinho's winner for Wolves: "We cannot allow [Adama] Traore, to go back to our goal to turn, knowing he is one of the faster players against speed, and gets the cross in."
Rewind to Vicarage Road in September 2016 and Watford's winner came via a cross from the right-hand side. "Our left-back is 25 metres distance from him, instead of five metres," Mourinho seethed. “But even at 25 metres, then you have to jump and go press. But no, we wait." Neither coach need have mentioned Shaw by name.
Martial actually got going when the going got tough in Mourinho's final months, embarking on what was hitherto career-best form of six league goals in five games. His standout seasons came in his first under Louis van Gaal and 2019-20 when he reclaimed the number nine from Lukaku. Once competition returned in the guise of Edinson Cavani, Martial crumbled again.
Mourinho told confidants Cavani would 'f--k' Martial and Marcus Rashford and both are poorer players now than they were on Mourinho's watch. Both resented Mourinho's apparent preferential treatment of Ibrahimovic and, in particular, Lukaku.
Yet across six seasons neither have matched Lukaku's 27-goal haul in his first United campaign. Lukaku, a flawed forward, has pillaged 93 goals for club and country since he left United in 2019. Martial, his direct replacement, has 32 and this time the club will not bend over backwards to appease him or Lamboley.
Rashford's own representative goaded Mourinho on social media by sarcastically posting his dismayed reaction to Rashford's infamous miss against Young Boys in November 2018. Rashford squandered an identical chance against Atalanta in October and ended 2021 with six league goals. Rangnick said on Friday he 'got worse' in the FA Cup win over Aston Villa. He was not in the squad at Villa Park when Rangnick had expected him to be.
Time will tell which players get back on their feet.
