THE INEVITABLE happened, the end of the Mourinho era at Old Trafford. Football is a funny game, it tip-toes to the abyss with alarming regularity, making bad and expensive decisions that play to the wisdom of trends time after time. Nobody, but nobody, should be surprised about the outcome, the media have been talking about nothing else for 12 months, looking for signs that the … Continue reading A CV-destroying job?
IT’S not fashionable to defend José Mourinho, especially after his poor impression of Ted Rogers on the TV Show, 3-2-1, but is it really so big a crisis at Old Trafford? Mourinho has the best win rate of any Manchester United manager – 61.48%, a figure that beats even the records of Sir Matt and Sir Alex. But there’s two things that are really agitating … Continue reading Finding galactico gaffers – why United may be better off with the status quo
WAS this the most expensive set of players to contest the FA Cup final? Quite possibly it was, with the combined market value of the 22 starting players amounting to € 1.2 billion according to CIES Football Observatory. Surely, then, we could expect something better than what was served up at Wembley? With Chelsea adopting a defensive style and United lacking adventure’ “Memorable it was … Continue reading Football Media Watch: FA Cup blues and reds
THE return of Jose Mourinho to Chelsea with his club Manchester United was always going to attract comment, especially given the typical friction between the self-styled “Special One” and his successor, Antonio Conte. Mourinho rarely looks happy when he’s happy, but his persona these days looks a little sad, even though he’s manager of United and has won a couple of trophies in his short … Continue reading Football Media Watch: Still special after all these years?
HAS JOSE MOURINHO lost his mojo? It certainly looks like the decline that started at Chelsea in 2015-16 is continuing into his first season with Manchester United. The unconvincing league form, and a disappointing European campaign both suggest that the “special one” may be past his best. Chelsea fans may have seen the last embers of a glittering managerial career. The two trophies in 2014-15 … Continue reading How much longer for Mourinho?
THE contrast between the unveiling of Manchester’s two new uber-bosses could not have been more dramatic: the manager as rock star versus the sniper from the dugout. If the past week is anything to go by, Pep Guardiola will charm the fans and the media and Jose Mourinho will resume his war of words with those he likes to aggravate. When Mourinho first came to … Continue reading Let the battle of Manchester begin
THE OLD TRAFFORD politburo has unveiled a monster…and it’s coming over the hill right now. It’s Jose Mourinho, late of West London, Madrid, Milan and Porto, and he’s been tasked with winning something very significant with Manchester United. Before we go into any wild predictions, this will end in tears, but in the process, United will claw their way back to a respectable position and … Continue reading Mou at MU: The quite-a-mess experiment
FOOTBALL has an image problem – conspicuous consumerism , behavior issues, ill-discipline, tantrums. You name it, you can apply it to the game and some of the characters within it. Some clubs have spent a lot of time and money on cleaning-up their act. But others still put up with a lot of the baggage that comes with some players and managers if the perpetrators can … Continue reading Three years of abrasion? – the prospect of United with Mourinho
GETTING RID of the man who has won more silverware than any other Chelsea manager was never going to be easy. Chelsea and Jose Mourinho parted company for the first time in 2007 with the team struggling to get into the super-charged gear of 2004-06 and, seemingly, a breakdown in relations between the owner and manager. It was still a genuine shock when he left … Continue reading Inevitable, but why do Chelsea operate in the shadows?
YOU ALMOST felt sorry for Jose Mourinho in his post-match interview following Chelsea’s 2-1 defeat at Leicester City. For the first time in his career, the “special one” looked down-trodden, bereft of ideas and at a loss to explain the malignancy of Chelsea’s appalling form in 2015-16. He used words like “betrayal” as if he genuinely believes he has been let-down by his players. But … Continue reading The end of an ethos?
FOOTBALL IS ONCE AGAIN showing that it lives outside accepted business behaviour as Jose Mourinho’s reign at Chelsea continues to unravel. It seems it is only a matter of time before the “troubled one” makes his exit from Chelsea, project unfulfilled and reputation damaged. It is hard to understand just what has gone wrong at Chelsea, but all fingers are now pointing at Mourinho and … Continue reading “You’ll just have to carry on…the dream is over”
LIVERPOOL now have their man in Juergen Klopp and the honeymoon begins in earnest. It’s a good hiring for Liverpool, one that should restore their European credentials and maybe reintroduce a bit of fun into what has become a poker-faced club in recent years. Klopp didn’t have many rivals for the job, because the pool of top-line managers is become a bit shallow. The same … Continue reading The managerial merry-go-round is running out of horses…but then there’s Simeone
