Coulrophobia used to abound at Old Trafford. Now it is there but in smaller doses and with different connotations.
José Mourinho was feared. Not as much as he would have liked to have been but he was feared particularly by his players who were so scared of him that they forgot how to play football in his, yes you guessed it, third season!
Prior to him, Louis van Gaal was feared and, as a strict disciplinarian, he probably had every right to be. (more…)
Ole Gunnar Solskjær can look forward to the backing of the board and a serious amount of cash to spend in the summer transfer window. This is according to Ed Woodward, the CEO of Manchester United Ltd. In the dreaded “vote of confidence” Woodward stated the obvious which was that the club were still challenging in the Europa League and FA Cup and still had a chance at Champion’s League qualification through their league position.
He failed to mention that ex-manager José Mourinho led United to second place in the Premier League, finishing 8 points above Liverpool who currently sit first, 38 points points ahead of United! (more…)
As everybody should be well aware, Manchester United’s appointment of José Mourinho as manager was a knee-jerk reaction to Manchester City’s appointment of Pep Guardiola. After all, Louis van Gaal had just won the FA Cup and qualified for the Europa League, albeit with sleep inducing football which would have had the world’s worst insomniac snoring within seconds.
Mourinho, after some initial success has also managed to play some very boring and ineffective football which, at times, has managed to border on the pathetic. So what is the problem? (more…)
Louis van Gaal – The only United manager as boring as Dave Sexton and Frank O’Farrell, although Moyes came close!
When José Mourinho breezed into Manchester it was, for all but the most cynical of United fans, like a breath of fresh air.
The days of David Moyes promising that the team would try to be as good as City and making Liverpool favourites to win a league game at Old Trafford were a distant memory.
The days of Louis van Gaal sitting rigidly in his seat rather than encouraging his team from the sidelines while they sent the crowd to sleep with mind-numbingly boring football were also consigned to the history books.
Mourinho was here! The “Special One” was now the Manchester United manager having been anything but special in his final season at Stamford Bridge, from where he had been sacked with Chelsea in 16th position in the league. (more…)
In Ed Woodward’s short and largely unsuccessful reign as whatever additional title he now holds regarding his control of the transfer policy at Manchester United, he has already had to deal with three managers.
David Moyes was the easy one. Ed was brand new to the position as was Moyes so they muddled through the first transfer window together like two kids meeting for the first time when starting school on the same day.
Ed made a mess of things that time back in 2013 and United ended up with Juan Mata, thanks to Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill, and Marouane Fellaini thanks to Woodward who missed the deadline for a decent discount on the deal and ended up paying £4 million more than he needed to. Still, easy come easy go, as they say. (more…)
This may come as a surprise to all the devotees of Manchester United and José Mourinho, but, as we sit here at WSA Towers in our suite of luxury offices, (long-term lease only), we have reached the conclusion that Gareth Bale is not on the manager’s wish-list.
You remember the wish-list? That was the test Mourinho set for Dithering Ed back in March and, even with five months revision time, Ed only managed to score 75%. He bought Romelu Lukaku, Victor Lindelof and Nemanja Matić. The one he missed, as everybody knows, was Ivan Perišić of Inter Milan and the story goes that it was because he wouldn’t go the extra four or five million that would have pushed the deal over the line. (more…)
Is José Mourinho just flirting with PSG in order to get some attention from his current employers? It is reported that he has asked for a “massive” pay rise, whatever that is, in order to sign a new and extended contract with United and he could be using the fact that he is still able to command the top jobs in European football as leverage to get it.
He could also be seriously contemplating taking the PSG job, either at the end of this contract or the next one.
United fans need to remember that, for Mourinho, this may be his biggest job to date, but it is still just another in the line of big jobs he has already undertaken and doesn’t necessarily mean he is at the end of his nomadic wanderings. (more…)
Continuing our delve into past articles written for other publications, today we look at one from a couple of years ago in which we thought Louis van Gaal may have been exaggerating his achievements at Old Trafford.
Most of the article is factual but we are quite pleased with our view on how it would all turn out as it was, in our insignificant opinion, pretty accurate. Anyway, here it is. (more…)
During the international yawn and, due to the paucity of anything remotely interesting in the football world, we will be publishing some of the articles written, by our goodselves, for other publications.
The reason for this is twofold. One is the lack of anything else worth reading, but the other is to see how accurate, or otherwise, we have been over the years. See what you think and please use the comments section to let us know.
To begin with, here’s an article we wrote back in 2015 which looks at how important Marouane Fellaini was becoming, even then, to Louis van Gaal. It was written just before the Champion’s League qualifier against FC Bruges of Belgium. (more…)
What do the following have in common;-
Arséne Wenger, David Moyes, Sam Allardyce, Marouane Fellaini and Claudio Bravo?
The answer is that they were all, at one stage or another, unwanted by the supporters of their club and some still are.
There are others too numerous to mention but these five are probably of the highest profile at present.
ARSÉNE WENGER
Arséne Wenger is now at the point where he is tolerated by the fans and this only because he awarded himself a new two year contract recently. Most Arsenal fans would have preferred if he had left or moved upstairs at the end of last season but not Arséne. He is deluded enough to place his own self -importance above the wishes of the majority of the supporters and stay where he is. (more…)
