• Mourinho’s final months may have been a masterclass in how to lose friends and alienate people, but he wasn’t entirely wrong.
• United are not failing because they do not employ a technical director. It is the players who are rotten.
Image: REUTERS
It is not for want of a director of football that Manchester United were four kilometres short of Everton across 45 minutes on Sunday. Nor is it the fault of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
That was the masterstroke of the Jose Mourinho era. The players convincing everyone that when they fell shy on basic effort, it was somehow the manager’s fault.
That they would have run harder, run farther, put in a shift, were it not for Mourinho and his negativity.
Look at United’s players now the draining influence of Mourinho has gone. Look at them run, look at them jump, look at them play.
Look at them now. Mourinho’s final months may have been a masterclass in how to lose friends and alienate people, but he wasn’t entirely wrong.
What he said about Paul Pogba, the questions he asked of Anthony Martial, these arguments were not without foundation.
Solskjaer is raising many of the same points as United’s season falls away.
Unlike Mourinho, however, Solskjaer before the match on Tuesday has not spent his Old Trafford tenure seemingly at war with the world: so the players’ excuses won’t wash.
It suits a lot of people to view Mourinho as the bad guy, the problem, the cause of it all. Solskjaer isn’t like that. He has brought nothing but positive energy since being handed the job in December, been nothing but a unifying force for good.
The way that football has evolved in the modern era, no Manchester United side should lose six games in eight, as this group have done. The opposition is immaterial.
Even if United lined up against the eight strongest teams in the world, with their resources, and their advantages, six defeats should not result.
As it is, this eight-game spell features meetings with Arsenal, Wolves, Watford, Barcelona, West Ham and Everton. So, with one exception, hardly the invincibles. Equally, the run of five straight away defeats — Arsenal, Wolves, Wolves, Barcelona and Everton — is the club’s worst run since 1981, when they lost six.
Yet Manchester United were a different club then. They had won a single major trophy, the FA Cup in 1977, in 13 years.
They were knocked out of the UEFA Cup in the first round, by Widzew Lodz of Poland.
And between August 16, 1980 and March 18, 1981 they won just nine of 42 games across all competitions. Dave Sexton, their manager, was sacked at the end of the season following an eighth-place finish.
United had finished ninth in 1979, 10th in 1978 and 18th in 1973. In 1974, they had been relegated. United were not the same entity.
The recent run under Solskjaer is more shocking because the status of the club, its potential and expectations, has alterbefore the match on Tuesday/ed entirely.
On Wednesday, United face Manchester City, with victory — or even a draw — potentially handing the title to Liverpool.
Is there any group of players who less deserve local bragging rights? What have they done to be the arbiters of success and failure down the road?
This will be the first season since 1973-74 that United have failed to outperform City in any competition. Yet draw or win, and they can strut around as if one little cameo is an achievement.
Actually, it’s catch-22. Lose and United are second best, as results show; win, and given what we have seen lately, they have plainly been short-changing their manager, and the fans.
That a club of this size does not possess a director of football is a surprise, but it is not the reason results have turned.
Much is made of United’s expensive failures set against the shrewd recruitment of Txiki Begiristain at Manchester City, but this overlooks that Begiristain was in for exactly the same players who have stunk out Old Trafford.
United beat City to Alexis Sanchez and Fred, so these failures can hardly be advanced as evidence of Begiristain’s wisdom.
Equally, financial decisions are usually made in accord with the owners, meaning the ultimate evaluation of Sanchez and Fred was most likely a collegiate one. Pep Guardiola’s arrival is the true game-changer.
EXPENSIVE PLAYERS
Pogba, Fred, Sanchez, Romelu Lukaku — United faced significant competition for them all. Woodward is castigated because many of the most expensive players he has bought have then let the club down.
Pogba has underperformed. It took Martial more than three years to trigger the bonus payment to Monaco due when he had scored 25 Premier League goals.
Fred can barely get in the team. Lukaku has lost his place, too.
Before him, Begiristain was being credited with the dubious signings of Fernando, Eliaquim Mangala, Jesus Navas, Stevan Jovetic, Alvaro Negredo and Martin Demichelis.
Fernandinho aside, the players driving City’s success had all arrived on Brian Marwood’s watch.
So, the notion a director of football would solve United’s ills is simplistic. The appointment alone affords no guarantees.
Ed Woodward catches a lot of the blame at Manchester United, but he has been relatively successful at recruiting marquee names these last years.
It is not the most sophisticated tactic, paying a fortune, but it is not as if he is putting the club in debt.
United have the resources to fund aggression in the transfer market and Woodward has been good at winning battles, head to head, with rivals.
By comparison, it seems as if opposition clubs have bought better, and cheaper.
Yet would a director of football have steered United in a different direction?
Certainly, there was little resistance to these signings at the time.
Pogba was considered a potential title-winning jigsaw piece; Fred the match for City’s Fernandinho.
Acquiring Sanchez was thought a coup when he had so many ties to Guardiola, the same with Lukaku and Chelsea.
It is only with hindsight Woodward is considered a klutz for successfully negotiating these transfers.
And what will change if Mike Phelan, for instance, is given the role? Not much.
It is still Woodward’s belief that to maintain the brand image — certainly at a time when United are not as competitive as previously — the club should attract the biggest names.
So if Gareth Bale becomes available this summer, United should be in that market, as well as bidding for a fabulous young talent like Jadon Sancho.
And while a director of football might consider Bale expensive or a risk for the money given his injury record, is he going to refuse to countenance a deal for such a player if there is a chance one can be made?
So this comes down not to the method of recruitment, but the capability of the recruited.
It comes down to the players, their desire to run as United men should for their manager.
At the moment, it looks as if they supported Solskjaer for the job merely because they saw him as a soft option and, having got him in place, they can relax.
And Solskjaer does sound soft at times. Saying he does not park in the manager’s space at the training ground out of respect for Sir Alex Ferguson is plain daft.
Ferguson hasn’t been in charge since 2013. That was three managers ago. Just take the damn parking space and act like the boss. What came across as humble as a winner makes Solskjaer seem a patsy as a loser.
There will be no backlash against him, though. Not yet, and maybe not long term, either, given his exalted status with the fans.
before the match on Tuesday/The players escaped the blame under Mourinho because they could depict him as the antithesis of the United way. No such cop-out is available with Ole at the wheel.
The fury in the voice of United stalwarts like Gary Neville is shared beyond. So, yes, United need a director of football.
They need a strong manager and a clear direction — but that isn’t why they lost at Everton. They lost because the players did not attempt the bare minimum. And now there is no one to frame, and no one to blame, but themselves.