Manchester United fans are a fickle bunch. The club sit second in the Premier League. They need one more point to ensure qualification to the knockout stage of the Champion’s League, having won EVERY game they have played, they are in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup and last season they picked up two major trophies.
At ANY other club, with the possible exception of Real Madrid, this would be seen as success. José Mourinho would be hailed the conquering hero and there would be talk of a statue being erected outside the ground.
Not, however, at Manchester United. Well certainly not from some of the fans who, rather stupidly, want him out. As is always the case when these little factions have one of their rants, they do not suggest an alternative.
They didn’t want David Moyes, then they didn’t want Louis van Gaal and now they don’t want Mourinho. The problem is that these people don’t know who they DO want. They are almost like professional mourners. Their sole purpose in life is to find something to be unhappy about and to then spend their time letting the rest of the world know how unhappy they are, even when there is nothing to be unhappy about.
Like a spoilt child who has quickly grown tired of the new toy for which he kept crying, they now want a replacement, they just don’t know what!
One of the problems here, of course, is the now worldwide availability of instant communication. An unhappy “fan” in India can find a soulmate in the USA and it will grow from there.
Having spent 26 years with Sir Alex Ferguson as manager, it is difficult for some United supporters to come to terms with anybody else, indeed, some don’t even know anybody else.
Well, here’s a little secret for the younger generation of supporters. Back in the sixties Manchester United were still the best supported club in England by a long way. They had a charismatic Scottish manager and three of the best players in the world. They played entertaining football and people flocked to see them.
They had many, many seasons when they won nothing at all but hey, that didn’t matter, right? They were playing attractive football.
Is that what the supporters of today are pining for a return to? Because, unfortunately for them, Mourinho has been employed to win. He has been employed to win games and trophies and has made an excellent and unprecedented start to his United tenure.
He is still on course for a very successful season and, where possible, he likes his team to play attractive, attacking football. This, in his mind, is not a requirement when visiting Stamford Bridge, Anfield or The Etihad, in the same way as it won’t be a priority in Champion’s League away games.
Now, he may be wrong. He may very well have collected three points from the games against Liverpool and Chelsea had he adopted a different approach, we will never know. But there is no point expecting Mourinho to change his entire philosophy because he gets a couple of results that are not to the fans liking.
José Mourinho is the best manager in the world at winning trophies. He is at Manchester United, hopefully for the long run. He will not bow to fan pressure to change his methods.
It is the fans who need to get behind him, not the other way round and some of these fair-weather supporters who only want to be associated with United when they are winning need to go and find another club to complain about.
Talking of people losing the plot, with another “decision of the year” contender, West Ham United have appointed the real “specialist in failure” as their new manager.
In a display of obviously twisted logic, the owners have already decided that spending next season in the Championship will be good for the players and fans and have recruited David Moyes to ensure that it happens.
Having left Manchester United rather worse off than when he joined them, he spent a while in Sociedad where he learned that his hotel did a rather good plate of egg and chips. He also managed to grasp the complexities of counting to four in the local language. He did not learn how to prevent the club from being relegated.
He returned to England, where his command of the language is only marginally better than it was in Spain, and was offered the Sunderland job. In no time at all he had them bottom of the Premier League and in a relegation dogfight which he subsequently lost.
As was the case in Spain, as soon as he realised that relegation was to be the result of his efforts, he jumped ship, blaming everybody bar himself for yet another failure.
Now, Davids Sullivan and Gold are proving, yet again, that their combined knowledge of football would sit nicely and neatly on the head of a safety pin and still leave enough room for a list of trophies won by their new manager.
At least they have only given him a six-month contract which already indicates that they don’t fully trust that he can do the job!
What is it about this industry that it gives such rewards to such failures? In which other area of employment could you fail and be fired THREE times and still be given a very highly paid job doing exactly what you have just been fired for!!!?
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 