To use a medical analogy, Manchester United are flat-lining and Jose Mourinho is the essential shock needed to restore a pulse at Old Trafford. In the three years since their former coach Sir Alex Ferguson retired, after winning 38 trophies in almost three decades, the Red Devils have become a shadow of their former selves under David Moyes and Louis van Gaal — the latter having been sacked last week, despite leading the club to its joint-record 12th FA Cup title, with a 2-1 win over Crystal Palace at Wembley last Saturday.
Far from the euphoria of their mid-1990s and early-noughties domination, a side that once lit up Europe with three Champions League wins, are now languishing outside the Premier League’s top four and struggling to even compete in the Europa League, Europe’s second-tier competition. What United now need is a guaranteed spark, and the ‘Special One’ is perhaps the only man in world football at the moment who can assure instantaneous success.
The 53-year-old Portuguese proved this at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid, winning 22 titles in 16 years of management — more than many of his contemporaries, like Arsene Wenger, Manuel Pellegrini and Van Gaal, who failed to achieve that number in double the timespan. It hasn’t always ended well, though, with one of the chief criticisms being the fact that Mourinho can’t sustain these short, sharp bursts of dizzying passion beyond three seasons at any club, especially if he doesn’t get things his own way when signing players.
But at this moment in time, United don’t have the luxury of thinking too far ahead. If they don’t arrest this decline now they could very well end up becoming the next Liverpool, a side that dominated English football in the 1970s and 1980s, only to have failed to win a league title in the 27 years since.
Put simply, if United drop any further down the league standings and can’t even qualify for the Europa League the season after next, they’ll lose the necessary television and sponsorship money needed to tread water with their rivals and will slip into becoming just another football club, which is the antithesis of what United are.
Mourinho is the band aid to end all band aids in this equation and he may even be more than that if he can settle into a groove and prove those questioning his longevity wrong. But even if he doesn’t, and this only lasts a few seasons as expected, United will still be successful within that timeframe and it will still buy them time to look ahead and move on from the Ferguson hangover.
Spell of sustained success
It will never be a perfect fit, as United have built their name through giving youth a chance, whereas Mourinho has always bought success using more established stars, having only handed 23 academy players a first-team start in his 15 years of management. United found fame with the Busby Babes, named so because of Sir Matt Busby’s reliance on home-grown youth, which brought the club its first spell of sustained success in the 1950s, before eight of his players perished in the Munich Air Disaster in 1958, on their way back from a European Cup game in Belgrade.
Busby, who survived the crash, along with nine other players, regrouped using the same philosophy and bounced back to win the club’s first European Cup title a decade later.
It was this same ethos that allowed the club to rise again with the Class of ‘92, when Ferguson was promoted from within to ensure a second era of success, despite former Liverpool player and football pundit Alan Hanson famously saying at the time: “You can’t win anything with kids.”
Mourinho is not of this ideology, but he may have to adapt. And in a similar vein, his style of football is also at odds with the entertaining, attacking and free-flowing football that has been associated with the club’s success, particularly under Ferguson.
While at Chelsea, he became renowned for his ‘park the bus’ tactics, where his side would nick a goal via a counter-attack before sitting back to steal a narrow win.
His enigmatic character and never-dull press conferences may make up for it, but it’s this boring anti-football that may not win too many fans in Manchester. That said, United need to get back to winning ways and it doesn’t necessarily matter at this stage whether that can be achieved by winning ugly.
While city rivals Manchester City have former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola taking over this summer, United needed someone with just as big a profile and proven track record to keep up with their noisy neighbours. And in Mourinho they have appointed one of the only other coaches who can offer all that and more.
