What’s With Mourinho Claiming That He Would Have Turned Down A United Job Offer?

The self proclaimed Special One, Jose Mourinho has now dubbed himself as the “Happy One” but his recent statements prove that he should have rather been called as the Adamant One.

Speaking to BBC, the former Real Madrid manager, who recently took charge of the Chelsea side, stated that he was so hard bent on the Chelsea job that he would have snubbed any other offers from across the world. He claimed,

“I knew that Ferguson was retiring many months ago.  I would have turned down every job in the world – the Manchester United job, every one – for Chelsea.”

Now it is no secret that Jose Mourinho had a personal friendship with Sir Alex Ferguson which went beyond their on-field rivalry and Mourinho claims that he was aware of Sir Alex’s decision because of the bonding they share. His exact words were

“Why do I know that? Because we are friends, so if I am his friend to know that he is going to retire, he is also my friend to know that the club I want to coach in England is Chelsea”.

But there always remains an iota of doubt as to why Mourinho went so overboard to authenticate to the world the kind of passion he holds for Chelsea. Although there are no confirmed sources, but still rumours exist that Sir Alex Ferguson went to New York not too long ago to try and persuade Pep Guardiola to take charge of the United team after his stepping down. Guardiola, as we all know, decided against moving to England and chose the German champions Bayern Munich instead.

But it has never been mentioned, at least in public domain, by any sources close to the club or Sir Alex that Jose Mourinho was being considered for the United job. Thus these statements become easy to express for a person when no formal approach was made to him, but had an offer been made to the two times Champions League winning coach, would he still have uttered these same lines from Stamford Bridge?

It was also an easy decision for United to turn to David Moyes after Sir Alex. Jose Mourinho is a kind of manager who believes in heavy investing and not to remain at a particular club for too long and gather moss, unlike Moyes. Moyes’ philosophy was the closest to United and in all fairness the former Everton manager is the perfect replacement for the role. The supporters of the club hope that the new Scot will continue the legacy left behind by another Scot for years to come and the dominance that United has over English football will remain intact.

The Chelsea fans, on the other hand, would/should be least bothered about all these and rather be speculating on the big money transfers that Roman Abramovich would do.