WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Let’s start by being honest. José Mourinho does and says lots of things with which we disagree. That does not make him a bad manager. In fact, his record of trophies and championships would suggest that he is a very good manager.

His style of football is not to everyone’s liking but it does, in the main, get the job done. Or, at least, it has done until very recently.

Last season he was a mile away from winning the Premier League, as was Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. The reasons, according to the experts, were simple; “old players”, “new manager”, “needs time to settle in” and other such clichés were being bandied around in an attempt to excuse the failure of the two new Manchester residents.

Down in London another new manager was “settling in” for his first season at his new club. The difference was that Antonio Conte managed to win the Premier League at the first attempt.

Now the press and the pundits had to switch from the positive excuses as to why Mourinho and Guardiola had failed, to the negative excuses as to why Conte had succeeded! Obviously, his situation was very similar to that of the other two except that he wasn’t involved in European competition of any kind.

That must have been it! Conte won the Premier League title because he didn’t have to worry about midweek games in Europe!

The only question here is how did Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea manage to keep winning the title when they WERE involved in European competition EVERY season? How come the clubs who didn’t play midweek games in a tough tournament didn’t win the league more often?

Anyway, the excuses were made. Conte was lucky he won the Premier League and Guardiola and Mourinho needed more time.

This season Guardiola’s team has run away with the title and Mourinho’s side are now four points clear of third placed Liverpool. Where are Chelsea? They are down in fifth place a whole TEN points behind fourth placed Tottenham Hotspur! So the excuse-makers appear to have been pretty accurate.

Mourinho, as we all know has now spent nearly £300 million on new players and his team are still thirteen points behind City. He has strengthened the midfield and the forward line with arrivals such as Paul Pogba, Nemanja Matić, Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sánchez and he has, supposedly, strengthened the defence by buying Victor Lindelof although he is yet to prove his value.

As he quite rightly says, in any other season, United’s points tally would be enough to see them leading the title race. So what? This isn’t any other season, this is THIS season. He says City have been outstanding and deserve to win the Premier League. That is also true but, again, so what?

United fans don’t want to hear, especially from THEIR manager, that their nearest rivals are deserving of anything, let alone the title. They don’t want to hear about how United would have won “if this” or “if that” had happened.

They want to know facts. The reason many United fans are still against the appointment of Mourinho and why some have turned from being for the manager to being against him is because of some of his strange decisions backed up by even stranger statements.

After his very strange decision to try and nick a 1-0 win at home to Sevilla in the Champion’s League which, of course, ended in a 1-2 defeat, he then went on a rant about the club and it’s European history, or lack of it. He so disrespected Manchester United that he lost a number of fans by those comments alone.

He has made Antonio Valencia the captain. Why? Valencia cannot defend so can’t lead by example. He doesn’t shout but, even if he did, only the Spanish speakers would understand him as he doesn’t speak English! How can the captain of MANCHESTER United not speak English?

Guardiola has any non-English speakers learning the language, Mourinho makes them captain of the club!

Another example of why City are so far ahead in the title race is the full back situation which, as you have probably guessed by now, never ceases to amaze us.

Guardiola recognised that his ageing full backs were past it and he had them out of the door as soon as it was possible to do so. He replaced them with young, pacy players and, except for Benjamin Mendy’s injury, they haven’t looked back.

Mourinho recognised his ageing wingers were long past it and told them to play as full backs, (yes, we know van Gaal also tried it but we thought Mourinho was better than that). So now we have two full backs who can’t defend, along with a couple of others, and what is the result of this? David De Gea keeps winning the player of the year award because he keeps making a very average defence look reasonably OK.

As we said, we don’t agree with everything Mourinho says or does, but he is certainly the best available at the moment. We want Manchester United to win titles and trophies and he is the best equipped to do so.

So, for the time being, we just have to put up with his idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, particularly if it brings success which, next season, will surely have to be the Premier League or the Champion’s League for him to stay in the job.

He has won the title with every club he has managed except Manchester United, that is the hole in his record which needs to be plugged.