Confirmed and Official - Welcome to Old Trafford José Mourinho

Note that I didn't respond to that part of your post, just your reading of the City situation.

I think it's a brilliant window. It's maybe two notches above a disaster, in terms of competing with this squad. There are a ********load of notches between us and that point.

But hey, we're losing Mou inside a year. And we're going to get a DoF in the process.

 

The next manager needs to match the direction set by the DoF.

 

meh, it's a disaster window because united fans are not used to management giving up on the title before a ball is kicked. there was a massive gap to bridge, and united simply didn't. it's a disaster window if the idea was to compete with city this year.

united are going to finish 2nd at best, 3rd if liverpool plays up to its potential, and CL is not a given if chelsea clicks and kane keeps scoring every game. that's bleak.

jose has not delivered and firing him this summer would have been completely fair. but since the football side is run by an accountant, united chose the worst football outcome: keeping a lame duck manager stripped of his power to save money.

 

Are United headed anywhere this season under Mourinho?

www.mufclatest.com/the-mourinho-project-where-is-manchester-united-heading-under-jose/

 

I said earlier we'll be outside the top 4. I am fine with that if it means some old heads go and a DoF comes with Mou trying to play an imposing style of play.

 

I like the idea of a DOF but I would prioritize canning Mourinho first. The new DOF can have a hand in hiring the next boss. Mou has already complained about how Managers are no longer managers and more like coaches. United is going to have to start from scratch.

I completely agree with the first part of the post. It is difficult as a supporter to go into a season with little to no prospect of achieving something.

On the second bolded part, I am not so sure the failure to sign someone was down to money exactly. It seems to me that Mou prioritized the CB position over all others and the board rejected shelling out for a CB for the third summer in a row.

I do also agree, though, that the club chose the worst option on the table. It looks more and more that this might be a throwaway season as far as the club is concerned. Lets see what the players have to say about that.

 

from mourinho's.comments, it seems like he prioritized the cb position vecause he didnt believe the board was willing/able to bring a winger and a left back as well...

and, to be clear, it's ok for woodward to reject mourinho's targets. BUT the fact that he spent the last day of the transfer window trying to panic-buy godin and briefng journalists that he had 100 mil ready for varane (and a billion for messi, i'm sure) leads me to believe that he didnt have much of a plan either.

 

"fans are not used to management giving up on the title before a ball is kicked."

We should never get used to posters making ridiculous claims about the title being given up on before a ball is kicked.

The real problem is that some United supporters have become spoiled. 5 titles in 7 seasons, missing on the other two by the slimmest of margins -- not hard to see how this happened.

The squad is substantially stronger than it was two seasons ago and we came in second last season against an outstanding City squad. We're no guarantee to win it this year, of course, but the point of all of this is not confirming a pre-ordained conclusion -- United winning the EPL trophy -- but bearing witness to the drama of a club making a run for the trophy.

We may come up short...but we also could pull it out. Not knowing which it will be and being witness to how the challenge is met is what it's all about.

 

This is the crux of it, whether you think it's a disaster or just close to one. We hugely overperformed last season as far as points to performance are concerned and regression to the norm beckons. We are very unlikely to get within 10 points of last year, our dressing room under Mou will never regain the same level of harmony as we had at the start of last season and Alexis is very unlikely to be as effective as Martial or Rashford were prior to his signing.

 

@gatekeeper2 all that to say "all teams start the season with a perfect record." ok, sure.

 

The best part about all these future manager articles and future DOF articles is that you know Jose is seeing them. If he wasn't lashing out before, you can bet your ass he's going to up it a notch. He might turn his anger more towards the media who we all know he's not very fond of.

 

United hierarchy unconcerned by Mourinho's 3rd season syndrome.

www.skysports.com/football/news/11667/11473493/manchester-united-hierarchy-unconcerned-by-jose-mourinho-8216third-season-syndrome8217

Interesting, although I guess they would never admit publicly otherwise.
Still hoping that Mourinho does enough to have us finish Top 4 at a minimum (a club of our stature can't miss out on this for prestige alone).
Already on record anyway that unless we win a major trophy (Prem or CL), Mourinho has to leave by the end of the season at the latest.
Would be nice if somehow the season does not become a dumpster fire...

 

4th place would be ideal. Keeps us in CL the following year but enough of a drop off to get him canned.

 

I think you could be onto something here myself.

What's the worse case anyway? Jose blows it up and we finish 6th or 7th?

Even that wont cripple us for a year. Not if we know we had Zizou coming in, and being able to use his name to sell players on the project. Especially the likes of Pogba or Martial.

 

While I would love that, I very much doubt that's true. Then what happens if Jose somehow exceeds expectations and we challenge for the title? If that happened a majority of the fans would have his back and firing him would cause outrage.

I wouldn't be surprised if we've reached out to ZZ to see how he feels about United and possibly coaching next season (with a chance of taking over soon if Jose implodes), but I highly doubt he's been promised the job.

 

You don't think the prospect of having Zidane at United would temper disappointment if Mou is yanked?

 

Maybe, but you have to take into account that most United fans are much more casual/unintelligent than the posters here. If we somehow were to challenge for the title this year, I believe they would fully back Jose.

 

In such a divergent alternate universe I’d expect our bigger worry to be the invasion and military occupation of most of Western Europe by Costa Rica.

 

I actually believe that I see only 2 possible ways for the fans who are either on the fence about Mourinho or who want him to go, to possibly change their mind about him this season.
Either he delivers a major title for the club this season, or they might settle for less, provided that the quality of our football had markedly improved this season.
With both scenarios a distant possibility at best at this time, I think that the majority of the fans will be done with Mourinho (just like our board, I believe) by season's end and more than ready for a new manager.
The fans who are pro-Mourinho will be so no matter what and they're really the minority, when it's all said and done.

 

Does this result in all players being molded into Wanchope?

 

Take a peek at Twitter and I think you’ll be surprised. A good majority of people support Jose. A lot of them are the “support United managers blindly” type while the others aren’t clued in enough to recognize that he hasn’t been a good manager for some time now. You cant underestimate the stupidity of the average United fan.

 

On that same token, Zidane is a bigger celebrity name in football. They might be accepting just based on that.

 

I hear you, but that is precisely why what happens in the realm of Twitter only means so much to me. Regardless of the field (be it sports, politics and entertainment), Twitter somehow has this uncanny effect of making it look like people do not have a functioning brain and just tends to bring out the worst in them.I do get the value in it, but for me the cons have surpassed the pros exceedingly, to the point I'm no longer on there.
I honestly believe that the majority of the fans worldwide are close to or are all but done with Mourinho (unless he delivers what we pretty much know he won't) and are just running out the string.
At the end of the day, what matters most is for the board and Woodward to come to the right decision, by season's end.