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17th April 2016
11:46am BST
Louis Van Gaal’s time at Manchester United, as well as the equally compelling saga of who will take over, could be framed in terms of a breathless question: “Who really runs Manchester United?”
Sensible types are always telling us who runs Ireland, Britain, the world and elsewhere, but there are many who refuse to believe that anything anywhere is not being controlled by a shadowy elite. With the possible exception of Aston Villa.
So much has been confusing at United this season that one of the only ways to make sense of it is to see it all as a vast conspiracy or, at the very least, a desperate struggle for power.
This idea is all the more compelling as there may well have been a desperate struggle for power.
But incompetence can sometimes be indistinguishable from manipulative cunning (see also Aston Villa). And it is also true that cunning prospers in a world dominated by the inept.
It is possible that the drawn-out saga at Manchester United has been caused by a combination of all these factors which happen to mimic perfectly the circumstances where dithering would keep a manager in a job.
When United beat West Ham in the FA Cup on Wednesday night, some were suggesting that Marcus Rashford had saved Van Gaal and he could look forward to another season if he won the FA Cup and qualified for the Champions League.
By Saturday night, despite relegating Aston Villa earlier in the day, many would have felt that Van Gaal’s position had become untenable again.
Manchester City had moved out of reach for now, but that didn’t really matter compared to what it all says about United. All their long-term plans last no longer than 90 minutes which, of course, is where Jose Mourinho comes in.
Mourinho still hovers, with advocates insisting it is unfair he has an image as a ruthless pragmatist who thinks only about the next victory and cares nothing for long-term planning, thanks to a career where he has thought only about the next win and cared nothing for long-term planning.
Those unfortunate precedents shouldn’t be taken as examples of anything except the past, but allies have also tried to point out that Mourinho has, in fact, a very good record of developing young players and it would be even better if he hadn’t other things on his mind.
“If it's impossible to deny that Mourinho's teams had an amazing record in a low number of injuries, then it is also important to reflect and see the reasons why some clubs and managers have to play with young players,” an old friend, Eladio Parames wrote last month
He used the example of Marcus Rashford who, he reasonably pointed out, was only selected by Van Gaal due to injuries.
Mourinho, therefore, was being undone by his excellence in keeping players fit, even though he was also totally committed to the development of young players except, say, Romelu Lukaku or Kevin De Bruyne.
Mourinho may indeed have a better record in developing young players than his critics suggest, but for much of his career he had other things on his mind, mainly winning.
At the start of the season when he was manager of the defending champions and all was well, Mourinho wondered about the obligations a manager owed to a young player.
At that stage, he had no need to make claims about his fine work in the rather abstract field of youth development. He was Jose Mourinho, champion, and players had to prove things to him.
“Must the manager give confidence to a player? Or must the player give confidence to a manager? And I had this nice internal discussion with my people. At the end of the day we reached a conclusion that players pick themselves. That’s the responsibility that they must have.”
Players, in other words, would not be indulged with a long and luxurious run in the side. If they wanted five games in a row to prove themselves, they could do that somewhere with different priorities. That idea went against everything Mourinho believed in, and everything he believed in was victory.
Last week, Marca reported that United would appoint Ryan Giggs, not Mourinho, a decision which would be a triumph for abstract values which Mourinho has rarely shown any interest in.
Van Gaal’s introduction of young players like Rashford has been a consolation this season, but if United were top of the league, few would care if Rashford was not part of that winning team.
Instead Rashford has allowed United to believe in a better future once Van Gaal moves on, but Mourinho has always viewed the future suspiciously.
His long-term plan has always involved a series of short-term plans which tended to centre around winning the next game.
If he had taken over at United earlier in the season, he would have arrived with a clear purpose. Mourinho might have confidently expected to chase Leicester City down if he had taken over at the end of December.
He would have come in billed as the man who could win the league, rather than the man who must produce a development plan going forward centred around youth development.
In the long wait since then, he has had to advance many versions of himself, when there is only one.
His allies are right when they say he has nothing against young players in particular. Instead he searches for those who might let him down or, in his more fevered moments, for those who will betray him.
It is a vigilance which has grown through his career, developing swiftly during his paranoid days at Real Madrid when he asked himself many times who runs Real Madrid, while the speed of his implosion at Chelsea was notable for the swiftness with which the idea of unity perished.
United may be unsure of Mourinho, there could be a power struggle or they might feel they can impose some restrictions on his methods by making him campaign on territory where he is less comfortable.
In the end, it only reveals an uncertainty about themselves. They know who Mourinho is and ultimately they may have to appoint him while consoling themselves that he is now committed to the abstract values which don’t matter as much as success.
If they wanted a different version of Mourinho, they wouldn’t be interested in Mourinho. After all, why would you hire Jose Mourinho if you wanted him to be somebody else?
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