Posts Tagged ‘Jose Mourinho’

rands

Apparently Mo Salah has no intention of leaving Liverpool for Real Madrid this summer. Liverpool fans would like to think that this was never his intention but it is being reported that his failed foul on Sergio Ramos, which resulted in Salah himself being injured, has put him off going to the Spanish capital and he is awaiting an apology from Ramos, who hasn’t been in touch since the game.

Call us sceptical if you wish, but we think Salah could be waiting a long time for his apology.

The other interesting aspect of this tale is that Barcelona have supposedly expressed an interest in the player and, although he has said he will not be leaving Liverpool for Madrid, he has not said the same about Barcelona. (more…)

mandg

José Mourinho wants, at some stage. to manage Portugal. He is quick, however, to point out that the position is still some way in the future as he has more energy for his club job now than ever before.

Pep Guardiola is still young, or so he assures us. This was pointed out by him when stating that he too would quite like to manage at country level in the future. He doesn’t stipulate which country probably because his country, in his own mind, isn’t yet a country.

Never mind, he would probably still have a few options were he to decide to make the move into the semi-retirement home which is international football management. (more…)

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Manchester United…..

José Mourinho has to go all out to win either the Premier League title or the Champion’s League or, best case scenario, both! The impression is that another trophy-less season might very well be the end of him and even a Carabao or FA Cup win, in isolation, wouldn’t be enough to save him.

One of his well documented problems is that, if he is not winning trophies, then his style of football alone is not enough to keep him in a job. As everybody is aware, he was sacked by Chelsea when five months into his third season back with them.

His demons begin to surface when he starts losing football matches and he tends to blame the players, physios, scouts and anybody else who isn’t him! (more…)

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Why was José Mourinho attending the international friendly game between Austria and Russia?

Well, obviously, he was there to watch Marko Arnautovic! How do we know? Easy, we read it in the paper, so it must be true.

It did cross our mind that he may have been there swotting up on the Russian team as he has agreed to be a pundit on a Russian TV station for the duration of the World Cup. (more…)

bandr

Confused? It’s hardly surprising after the noises coming out of Madrid! Only minutes after winning the trophy for the thirteenth time in their history and the third time in the last three years, two of the BBC were talking of their futures as though they had played their last games as a Galáctico.

The other member of the BBC, Karim Benzema, probably realises how lucky he is to be playing at a club whose manager is from the same ethnic background as he is and, probably because of this, keeps selecting him no matter how average a player he is. So he is keeping his mouth shut at present.

But what is likely to happen with the other two? (more…)

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Apparently Manchester United are going to buy almost every player who is rumoured to be for sale. In an attempt to separate the “possibly true” from the “absolutely not” we look at deals which could happen.

Dastardly Daniel Levy decided, a while ago, that Toby Alderweireld was surplus to requirements at Tottenham Hotspur because he had the audacity to think he should be paid more than the minimum wage.

This alerted Manchester United manager JosĂ© Mourinho and had Ed Woodward reaching for the nail-biting repellant at the very thought of having to negotiate with London football’s answer to Shylock. (more…)

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The Antonio Conte saga goes on. No decision has yet been announced by either the man himself or Chelsea as to what his immediate future holds. The fact that everybody else already knows doesn’t appear to have occurred to either of the two parties. Or maybe it has and that is why they can’t be bothered announcing anything.

Anyway Conte, when he does leave/get fired in the very near future, won’t be rushing into a new job. He has decided to take a sabbatical at Chelsea’s expense.

This is because, contrary to popular belief, he won’t be swapping jobs with Maurizio Sarri, who may end up at Stamford Bridge but will be replaced by Carlo Ancelotti. No, Conte is more likely to take over Ancelotti’s bar stool for a period so he can see how the land lies. (more…)

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Nemanja Matić has decided that Manchester United need to sign some experienced players in order to challenge for the title next season.

What does this actually mean? Is he saying that Antonio Valencia (33), Ashley Young (32), Marouane Fellaini (30), Juan Mata (30), Ander Herrera (28), Alexis Sánchez (29) and himself (30) don’t have enough experience between them to win the Premier League title?

Or is he saying that the younger players aren’t good enough and need replacing with experience? So some of Pogba, Martial, Rashford, Shaw, Rojo, Lindelof and Bailly need to go and make way for some older players to come in! (more…)

mufc

José Mourinho will point to a second placed finish in the Premier League and, no doubt, try and spin this as progress on last year’s sixth place. Taken in isolation he is right, there has been a slight improvement in league performance.

What must also be taken into account is that the only other team to improve on last season were Manchester City and we all know what they did! In fact, of the top six, United and City were the only two to improve on last season’s eventual league position.

Chelsea went from first to fifth, Arsenal went from fifth to sixth, Tottenham Hotspur went from second to third and Liverpool remained static in fourth. So the fact that United managed to climb into second can be put down, in part, to the failure of the others to improve or even maintain their previous season’s form. (more…)

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This year’s FA Cup final, as well as being the traditional curtain-downer on the domestic season, was also an example of two managers under pressure for completely different reasons.

Antonio Conte, who is widely expected to resign/be fired within days of the game, is under pressure because he has proven to be a one-season-wonder in the Premier League and that only because he had no European involvement to hinder his side’s progress to winning the title.

JosĂ© Mourinho is widely expected to take some time off and go visiting Portugal, a grand prix or two and then pitch up for RT, a Russian TV station, as a double agent World Cup pundit. He is under pressure because some Manchester United fans find it difficult to accept that THREE trophies and a second place finish in the Premier League in two years should be considered successful. (more…)