Jose Mourinho’s comments about Man United are still valid as the club prepares for changes at the top.
It can be seen that Jose Mourinho’s recent comments are identical to what he said about Man Utd 4 and a half years ago.
“After the first two months of working, I told the owners of Man Utd that as long as these people (several players and members of the club’s board of directors – PV) are still around, the team will not be able to do anything. This group of people cannot only the players. And up to now, they are still at Man Utd,” Mourinho said on the OBI One podcast.
In May 2019, Mourinho confirmed to L’quipe: “The problems are there, you can say it is the players, the organization, and the ambitions of Man Utd.”
Of the current Man United squad, Victor Lindelof, Diogo Dalot, Luke Shaw, Scott McTominay, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial all played football under Mourinho.
In a conversation with John Obi Mikel, Mourinho said: “At Man Utd, I replaced a player at half-time, then his agent later accused me of bullying that player. That made me angry.” I have to change. Sometimes I remember that time and laugh.”
That name is said to be Shaw. Mourinho never used an immature player like Shaw, who was once late for training because his mother fell asleep and didn’t wake him up. During one training session, one coach even proved to be superior to Shaw.
One of the “people still there” that Mourinho mentioned could also be Martial. This could be the last season the French striker stays at Old Trafford. Mourinho asked to sell Martial in July 2018 but Joel Glazer and Ed Woodward objected.
In fairness to Martial, when things got tough in Mourinho’s final months, he had a career-best performance of six goals in seven matches. Martial finished the season with more goals under Mourinho than Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
But the moments when Martial shined in the Man Utd shirt can only be counted on the fingers of one hand. He was often injured and never reached his full potential. Marcus Rashford had good matches and bad matches. This player also lost himself.
Most importantly, Man Utd’s leadership team has not given up power. Over the past year, there was a time when it seemed that the Red Devils would change their skin, change their flesh and be sold to Qatari owners. But nothing happened. The Glazer family is still in power and promises to maintain this for many years to come.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe is preparing to take over Man Utd’s sports department, but there is no sign that the Old Trafford team will really turn a new page. They were still a mess.