It has been a very turbulent year for Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho. Last season, he started the season at Chelsea having won the Premier League the season before. He made some big signings including Pedro and Radamel Falcao to help Chelsea secure the league again.
However, unbeknown to Mourinho at the time, he could have sealed his fate in his very first game. Chelsea opened the season drawing 2-2 with Swansea and shifted the blame towards physio Eva Carneiro and starting a controversial story that would rumble on for months. This incident spread discontent among the Chelsea ranks and started a run that would see Mourinho winning only 3 games before he was sacked 4 months later on December 17th with Chelsea near the bottom of the table.
Of course, such is the cut-throat nature of world football, plenty of clubs were still willing to take a chance on him and it wasn’t long before Manchester United moved to acquire the services of the man known as ‘The Special one’.
Which brings us to today and the following stat:
Jose Mourinho has now lost 13 of his last 27 games as manager. His previous 13 defeats came over a span of 135 league games.
The problem is, Mourinho in his last 27 games, managed clubs who had an embarrassment of riches. His Chelsea squad was worth hundreds of million. At Manchester United, it is the same and he spent a huge amount of money in the summer transfer window. Paul Pogba alone broke the world record and cost Manchester United £89Million.
13 – Jose Mourinho has lost 13 of his last 27 league games as a manager. His previous 13 defeats came over a span of 135 league games. Woe. pic.twitter.com/T6clMyiVkN
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 24, 2016
Yet Manchester United are seeing zero benefit to that outlay. They were doing ok. But when they visited Anfield one week ago, on the back of a 1-1 draw at home to Stoke, question marks really started to be asked. United, with their vast array of attacking talent, defended for their lives, showing little attacking intent.
That brings us to the underlying problem here. Manchester United are a team built on a rich history of attacking players and exciting football. Mourinho was never going to provide that. But such was the desire to be successful once more, that Manchester United went with what they thought was a sure thing. But for Mourinho, when you play a pragmatic game that is results focused, with no compromise on entertainment and attacking – you are giving yourself very little breathing space should results go wrong. Especially at Manchester United.
His visit to Chelsea at the weekend was heralded as a big occasion. #TheReturn was a trending hashtag on twitter, which was ablaze with activity… and the main subject was Mourinho. Many expected him to do the same thing that he did at Liverpool a week earlier and set his team up to defend.
But Mourinho’s team were made to look a shambles. They were defensively awful, looked awful in attack and perhaps most damning is that he didn’t look to have any answers. His opposite number Conte completely outwitted him.
Jose Mourinho has always been known to have the biggest ego in football. But perhaps it’s time to take a long look at himself and wonder if he needs to adapt and move with the times.