Insert the manager’s name to match the whine:
He’s been there too long.
Too many crosses.
Too sideways.
Too short-term.
Doesn’t give youth players a chance.
Not the United Way.
It’s time that the Old Trafford faithful faced up to a few home truths. Alex Ferguson is gone, the dynasty has fled, and it’s not so much that Manchester United have become like the rest of the clubs in the Premier League chasing short-term glory, it’s just more obvious now because they don’t have one of the best managers of all time guiding them. It’s more obvious now because winning isn’t taken for granted anymore.
The post-Fergie era is tough. What’s the big surprise? Everyone knew it would be. That’s why no-one wanted to face a post-Fergie era.
But with 7th, 4th, and 5th place finishes following in the aftermath of the Scotsman’s final league title; with David Moyes, Ryan Giggs, and Louis van Gaal failing to scale the unscalable heights in quick-time fashion, the club have hit the panic button and confirmed that long-term visions are only acceptable now as long as the short term is taken care of first. And foremost.
That’s fine, there’s big money involved here and there are other clubs threatening to move on and leave United in their trail. There are clubs looking like they’ll overtake United too if they stand still any longer. So they want results and they want them next season.
The fans do too. But not at the expense of their snobbery. Or just at their pride of how they used to do things the right way.
EXCLUSIVE footage of Ed Woodward's meeting with Louis van Gaal.https://t.co/gBYDLZGIlT
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) May 23, 2016
So, now, despite a unified recognition that they need to be challenging nearer the top of the league again, that they need to be that big club they always were, there was nearly a clamour – not just acceptance – for Jose Mourinho to kick their arses in gear, after the same man originally had noses turned up at him.
Perhaps though United fans can hold on to some shred of the old United if they nit-pick at the new boss. If they question his youth policy, for example.
That’s what the modern day football fan wants more than anything, right: a seven-year plan that promises a good, local team at the end of it – one that might even compete for honours one day. Or players you can sell on for a profit.
A youth policy didn’t save Louis van Gaal’s job. Plucking Jesse Lingard from the underage structure and refusing to send him on his fifth loan stint so he could be transformed into a cup-winning hero instead counted for very little in the end. Bringing Marcus Rashford through and putting so much faith in him that the striker is in contention for a Euro 2016 spot didn’t amount to any real merit for Louis van Gaal. No-one cared.
Suddenly, it’s a yardstick Mourinho should be measured with.
Why? No-one really knows. All they know is that Jose Mourinho does not have a history of finding players like David Beckham and Paul Scholes lying around his club, playing them, and turning them into global superstars.
No-one accounts for the fact that he hasn’t been with any club for longer than three seasons – barring an extra month with Chelsea in his first period there.
No-one bothers to look at how he comes in, builds teams so they can win the league and, since he joined Porto, he has managed that incredible feat in his second season with every single club.
No-one asks who these players are that Mourinho was supposed to have deprived opportunities. Where are they now?
No-one looks at the players he did give chances to either.
FC Porto
- Ricardo Carvalho was 22 and had played just one full season with club before Mourinho arrived and made him a key man.
- Carlos Alberto was 19 – he bought him himself – and the teenager scored in the Champions League final.
Chelsea
Sky Sports‘ graphics would show you all the players he gave chances to in his two stints at Stamford Bridge.
Inter Milan
- At 17, Mario Balotelli wasn’t ignored. The Italian played over 70 times under Mourinho in two seasons.
- Davide Santon, at the same age, was a product of the youth team and played 28 league games in the same time.
- Mourinho signed Philippe Coutinho too at 17 although the Brazilian stayed on loan with Vasco Da Gama for two years.
Real Madrid
- Academy prospect Alvaro Morata was given his debut at 17. He played 12 league games in Mourinho’s third season.
- Jesé was given his debut at 18 under Mourinho.
- A teenage Raphael Varane was signed by Jose and thrown straight in.
- A young Casemiro, so crucial to Madrid now, was given his debut and fill of the action during the Portuguese’s reign.
- Almost 20 debuts were handed out to academy prospects in all in just three seasons.
“Any time I have had young players with the ability to become top players and play for the first team; any time I had that, I picked them. I did it everywhere I worked,” Mourinho once said.
Why the hell wouldn’t he? Whatever you think of him, he might be chaotic, he might get paranoid, he might eventually bring a negative feel to the club but he’s not an idiot. He knows football and he knows what a good player is. Whatever you think of him, he builds good teams wherever he goes. Whatever you think of him, he’s not going to spoil his chance of making a better team just with some bizarre notion that he doesn’t want to risk younger players.
And this myth that he ignores them is just that, a myth. It’s just an excuse for some Manchester United fans to at least pretend that they’re hanging on to the last remnants of the old United. It’s a way of showing that they’re still a classy club with more depth than the rest of them despite the public hounding out of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal in search of short-term gains.
But answer this: where is this Paul Pogba player that Jose denied a chance to? Where is the youth team cream that eventually rose to the top despite being suppressed under Mourinho? Where is the proof that he doesn’t actually play young players?
And where on earth did this romantic idea about bringing through youth players become so important? Because it did nothing for Louis van Gaal. It wasn’t even used as an argument to defend him in the end.
No-one cared.
And no-one cares.
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