Tag: Manchester Utd

Jose Mourinho is no longer The Special One. He is The Dull One

One thing that must be acknowledged is the Jose Mourinho we all knew and some fell in love with is gone.

The slick, arrogant, hungry young manager is long gone and is now a completely different animal. He is now a negative, dull, tired old shell of his former self.

The tipping point seems to be the Chelsea league win a few years ago. Even when he came back to Chelsea he looked tired and dull in his opening press conference.

He won the league in his 2nd season back so no one seemed to make much of this difference in persona. With this achievement, he seemed to be completely contempt and any remaining hunger left him completely.

An unbelievable relegation battle followed and inevitable sacking. He got the Man Utd job off reputation alone and in his first season finished outside the top 4.

This was covered up by the Europa League and League Cup triumphs which are not major trophies. Not in Man Utd’s world anyway.

He has been given an unreal amount of money to spend on players who at this stage have got his team results despite his overly negative and defensive tactics.

This Sevilla two-legged performances and results are showing his lack of quality as a manager. The 2nd leg last night was absolutely diabolical. Truly awful.

The team were suffocated through fear of losing an away goal. This comes from him. Nobody else. If you let the players go out by themselves, they would look to smash Sevilla.

To put this result into perspective, Leicester City beat this Sevilla team 2-0 this time last year to dump them out. This £400m Man Utd team never looked liked doing the same.

Being 2nd in the league this season is no achievement when you consider the money spent and being 16 points behind Man City without any realistic title challenge.

Jose Mourinho should be developing into a different type of manager at this stage. He is older but is he any wiser? Perhaps he is a different type of manager…an average one. A dull one.

So maybe that’s just it. The Special One has become The Dull One.

@ToonBano

 

Weird transfer XI – Some shockers in here!

There have been some weird transfers over the years. Some that just didn’t make sense at the time and seem even worse when you look back. Here are some that stick in my mind: 

GK: Edwin Van Der Sar – Juve to Fulham.

The whole thing was just weird. Clearly too good for them. Eventually made his move to Man U and won it all. What’s unreal is he was at Fulham for FOUR years. What a total waste of time.

RB: Mat Debuchy – Newcastle to Arsenal.

May not seem that weird but as a Newcastle fan, we couldn’t believe Arsene Wenger paid us twice as much as we did for him, to take him off our hands. He’s done nothing at Arsenal and none of us are surprised. Weird.

(I also have to mention Julian Faubert from West Ham to Real Madrid on loan. Very strange one)

CB: Laurent Blanc – Inter to Man Utd. 

Seriously this one was weird for the entire time he was there. He was clearly too old and contributed to Fergie’s worst ever season in the Premier League. So ridiculous.

CB: David Luiz – PSG to Chelsea.

This one was weird right? No-one could understand it. He then helped them win the league. So weird. He’s now not in the team. Not so weird.

LB: Mikael Silvestre – Man Utd to Arsenal.

I found this one just very strange. I couldn’t get my head around it. Fergie never sells to a rival, so he must have been past it, but he wasn’t that bad, which made it all just weird.

CM: Thomas Gravesen – Everton to Real Madrid.

Has there ever been a weirder permanent transfer? He actually played as well. Twilight zone.

CM: Edgar Davids – rocks up at Barnet.

This wasn’t a transfer and he was player-manager (kind of) but come on. Edgar Davids playing for Barnet? Weirdo.

CM: Ivan Campo – Real Madrid to Bolton.

I could have put Fernando Hierro in this team or even Djorkaeff but Campo was still in his prime and had only recently stopped polishing his Champions League medal. He would spend six years at Bolton. Six.

FW: Nicolas Anelka – Fenerbahce to Bolton.

PSG, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Man City, Fenerbahce, Bolton, Chelsea, wait what? If Anelka were to go for a job interview, he would need to explain the gap in his CV for that 2-year spell at Bolton Wanderers. How? Why?

FW: George Weah – Milan to Chelsea.

This was just weird. It’s like it never happened but it did and I for one can’t forget it. George Weah was a mirage, a mysterious idol to be watched only on Football Italia, winning World player of the year. Not struggling to play up front with Chris Sutton. No. No. No.

FW: Ian Rush & John Barnes – Leeds & Liverpool to Newcastle.

First off, these are two players so technically makes my XI a 12 man team. However, they came at the same time and given their ability at their respective ages, they just about make up one players worth.

As a Toon fan, I watched Kevin Keegan sign Ferdinand & Ginola in 1995 and almost won us the league. I then saw Kenny Dalglish sell them both in 1997 & replace them with over the hill Ian Rush & John Barnes. What? I know they say ‘sign what you know’ but this destroyed our team and put the club back for years. Perhaps forever. Why Kenny? Why? Utter nonsense.

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Why does Mourinho have a Jedi-like mental hold over the media?

“The fact is Jose Mourinho is made of a shiny thick coat of Teflon when it comes to any possible criticism of his teams, his management or his comments.”

It is absolutely fascinating to witness the hacks in this country, as well Sky Sports and alike, that take pride in destroying anybody in football’s reputation or credibility whenever they see fit over the smallest of things, be totally uninterested in doing the same to Jose Mourinho.

Jose Mourinho has many gifts. A gifted manager, gifted coach, gifted translator…ahem. But perhaps his greatest gift is his Jedi-like mental hold over the media in this country.

They seem to be totally unaware that Jose can say any old nonsense and they soak it up like a sponge, no matter how ridiculous or untrue.

He once attacked Arsene Wenger by saying he is a specialist in failure when the Frenchman correctly called Jose up on supposedly conceding the Premier League title, well the special one is a specialist in evading failure that’s for sure.

Take Jose Mourinho’s latest media propaganda regarding Manchester United’s end to the season. He claims that Man Utd have too many games so he is sacrificing the Premier League to fully commit to the Europa League. This in itself deserves to be scrutinised by the media in this country as to how many games Man Utd actually have, with the quality of squad he has available.

A five-second Google search tells me that the only significant injured players Man Utd have had over the last few weeks are Zlatan Ibrahimovic & Marcos Rojo. That’s it. Luke Shaw & Darmian were out but were they first choice full-backs? Luke Shaw certainly isn’t.

“He had a good performance. He was in front of me and I was making every decision for him,” Mourinho said. This critique was so pre-calculated that it came with one of those sound bites that Mourinho is always able to reach for. “It was his body with my brain,” he said.

Jose Mourinho’s take on Luke Shaw’s performance versus Everton

Jose came out after another convincing away defeat at Spurs and claimed that Man Utd only have one game left to the season as they don’t need the Premier League games. Yet nothing is said from anyone about this ludicrous statement.

Let’s say the remaining games are pointless because Man Utd can’t finish in the top 4, who’s fault is that? What’s the reason that Man Utd can’t finish in the top 4? Is it not a disgrace that Manchester Utd spent over £150 million in the summer, to add to a squad that had spent over £130 million the season before, which added to an outlay of over £160 million to the season before that, has failed to finish in the Champions League spots? Where has this £450 million gone?!

Jose Mourinho has been telling everyone in every press conference or interview that he can’t play a certain team for a certain game because he doesn’t have the players. Let’s have another quick five-second google search and find out if he is telling the truth. Players that have been available to him for his favoured 4-3-3 formation:

GK – De Gea; Romero. RB – Valencia; Jones; Smalling; Young. CB – Bailly; Jones; Smalling; Blind. LB – Blind; Young. CM – Herrera; Fellaini; Pogba; Carrick; Mata; Rooney. Winger – Mkhitaryan; Lingard; Rashford; Martial. Striker – Rashford; Martial; Rooney. If a manager can’t pick a competitive team for a game every three or four days from that, then sack him.

The fact is Jose Mourinho is made of a shiny thick coat of Teflon when it comes to any possible criticism of his teams, his management or his comments. In spite of the fact that he is actually treating the media with complete contempt, as he knows full well they will report whatever he says and then discuss it like starving sheep that fall over themselves with any soundbite which they desperately crave.

How about you delve into or even dismiss what he is telling you and look at the facts. You might then get around to doing some journalism and calling out Jose for what he has been over the past two seasons, a failure.

Follow The Ginger Pirlo on Twitter @ToonBano