WHY SAY ANYTHING?

1. A Winning Mentality

Wherever Mourinho has been he has won trophies. Beginning with Porto back in his homeland all those years ago he took this unfancied team to Champion’s League glory. Obviously, domestically he had already won the Portuguese league in order to qualify.

Since leaving Porto for Chelsea he has had one success after another. In fact, since his first club, Benfica, back in 2000 he has managed clubs in a total of 765 games winning 505, a win percentage of 66.01%

It must also be remembered that this success hasn’t always been with the biggest clubs, but some of it has. This brings us to the next point:

2. Big Club Management Experience

Mourinho, as we know, has won the Champion’s League with Porto, in Portugal and Internazionale in Italy. He has also won domestic titles in Portugal, Italy, Spain and England. He has proven, unlike van Gaal and even Guardiola, that he can do the business when there is realistic competition around.

If we take the biggest jobs that van Gaal and Guardiola have had it is quite easy, for they are the same jobs. A Barcelona team that, generally, only has to finish above Real Madrid to win La Liga and a Bayern Munich team that only has to keep it’s players fit for half a season to have the league wrapped up by Christmas.

So the argument that van Gaal was a big club manager when he arrived at Old Trafford is true, but not under extremely competitive conditions. Guardiola will find winning trophies at Manchester City much more of a challenge than anywhere else he has managed.

The top clubs in England are now all about to benefit from the TV windfall meaning that Southampton, for example, no longer need to sell their better players to balance the books. This will make it all the more challenging for the “top” managers.

Jose Mourinho already has experience of fighting for the title when it has been a three or even four way battle. In England he has had to battle with Manchester City, United, Arsenal and Liverpool to name but four. In Italy it is not a given for Inter to win the league. AC Milan, Juventus, Roma, and nowadays Napoli are certainly clubs who would consider themselves amongst the favourites to lift the trophy.

So, Mourinho’s experience of managing big clubs and winning big trophies, is second to none.

3. Stability

Probably the most unexpected this last one. I do, however, believe that Mourinho wants to stop wandering around and settle down for a while. His ultimate gameplan is to retire to the Algarve at some stage where he will be able to swap stories with Louis van Gaal over expensive bottles of Vinho Verde but, at present, he appears to want to settle in England.

This would be good news for a club like United who also want a manager they can appoint and forget. Providing Mourinho can tone down some, not necessarily all, of his more extreme behaviour then he could be the perfect fit at United.

Moyes and van Gaal were both thought to be the perfect fit for United. Neither have proven to be the case and both, in their own ways, have failed. Moyes proving that United should not hire somebody with no experience of a big club, a reason which would also rule out the likes of Mauricio Pochettino at present, and van Gaal proving that winning in “two-team leagues” does not provide the required experience to manage United.

So, for me, on these three points Mourinho is the outstanding candidate. Better even than Pep Guardiola, who does not have the all-round experience that Jose possesses.

So it’s over to United! There is no rocket science involved here, it is simply a case of employing the right man for the job. What is so difficult about that? Particularly when there is only really one candidate!