Five reasons Jose Mourinho is the wrong man for Manchester United

Despite Manchester United’s recent uplift in results, netting thrice in a midweek win over Stoke City and claiming a decent if unspectacular away draw against Chelsea on Sunday, it seems Louis van Gaal’s tenure will inevitably come to an end this summer.

The Dutchman is still fighting his corner but the vast majority of the British media – including the ever-reliable BBC – believe talks are already underway to replace him with Jose Mourinho at the end of the season.

It’s not hard to understand why the Red Devils might turn to the Special One. His trophy cabinet is vast, especially for a 53-year-old, and he’s the only manager in world football who can claim to have gotten the better of Manchester City-bound Pep Guardiola in a title race, winning La Liga in 2012 as both stood either side of the El Clasico rivalry.

Yet, the blotches on Mourinho’s CV are becoming increasingly harder to ignore, especially after his incredible fall from grace at Chelsea this season, and there’s certainly more risk to this appointment than initially meets the eye.

With that in mind, here are FIVE reasons Jose Mourinho is the wrong man for Manchester United.

SHORT-TERM MANAGER

The desperation to claim a first Premier League title since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement is certainly understandable and if it’s silverware you’re after, Jose Mourinho virtually guarantees it.

But hiring the Special One is like making a deal with the devil; instantaneous success followed by eventual implosion and potentially huge cost in the long-run.

The Portuguese’s final six months at Chelsea proved as much. If Mourinho can’t stick it out at a club whose philosophy is carved from his own image and whose fan base treats him like a managerial demi-god, he’s not going to stick it out anywhere.

Perhaps that’s not much of a concern for the United hierarchy, who are desperate to curtail the stranglehold Pep Guardiola could have on the rest of the Premier League at Manchester City.

But the Red Devils supposedly see themselves as a long-term club above the modern game’s hire and fire culture. If that’s still the case, then Mourinho isn’t the man for the job.

PRAGMATIC STYLE OF FOOTBALL

A ‘boring’ style of play is one of the biggest criticisms lingering over the head of Louis van Gaal, but can Manchester United fans really expect much better under Jose Mourinho?

The idea that the Portuguese isn’t interested in attacking football remains a bit of a fallacy; Chelsea played some fantastic stuff during the first six months of last season’s title bid. Likewise, it’s not as if the great Sir Alex Ferguson was completely adverse to industrious, pragmatic performances when he felt situations required them.

Yet, Mourinho reverted back to type far too quickly last season. Chelsea were waltzing their way to the Premier League title regardless but from January onwards, he eked out almost every game to an eventual one-goal win.

I’m sure the majority of fans would accept a more attritional style if it placed United near the top of the Premier League table. But it seems rather hypocritical that those blasting van Gaal would support a manager who, in direct contrast to Ferguson, has always favoured results over performances.

Poor record with young players

If there’s one thing most United fans will give Louis van Gaal credit for, it’s the number of young players he’s given chances in the first team since taking the Old Trafford hot seat two summers ago.

Many see a close connection between the academy and the senior squad as a vital part of the Old Trafford DNA and LVG has certainly delivered in that regard, issuing debuts to the likes of Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, Tyler Blackett, Paddy McNair, Andreas Pereira, Jesse Lingard and Guillermo Varela to name a few.

Mourinho’s track record with young players, on the other hand, is rather underwhelming to say the least.

Despite the Blues’ academy set-up being arguably the best in the country and their loan army containing a host of prodigious talents, graduates Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Bertrand Traore barely saw the light of day under the Special One whilst Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku were both overlooked and eventually moved on. Both have since emerged as two of European football’s most exciting young players.

Rather than promoting from within and developing talent, Mourinho stamps his mark on his teams via the transfer market, which brings us nicely onto…

HUGE SPEND ON SQUAD OVERHAUL

Perhaps money isn’t much of an issue for a club like Manchester United, who have spent as freely and lavishly as any team in world football since appointing Louis van Gaal in summer 2014.

Nonetheless, Mourinho’s two Chelsea spells were both accompanied by rather incredible spending – around £480million spread across six summers at the Stamford Bridge helm – and he could well end up splashing out the net worth of Namibia to try and reconfigure United’s squad.

Juan Mata remains a prime example. The Spaniard is arguably United’s best player but the Special One has already ousted him once and will likely look to do so again. Yet, Mata still requires replacing with another top-drawer talent and that alone could require a £50million-odd sum.

Likewise, Mourinho changed practically the entire Chelsea team he inherited from Rafa Benitez, with John Terry, Eden Hazard, Oscar and Gary Cahill the only real survivors, and I envisage similar upheaval at Old Trafford.

Some might suggest an expensive squad overhaul is needed and probably worth it if United win the title. But Leicester City have proved that it’s possible to challenge without spending fortunes and if anything, the Red Devils should be looking to slow down their spending after two years of scatter-gun recruitment.

DRAMA

Where ever there is Jose Mourinho, there is inevitably drama. On occasion, the media furore appears to work in his favour and actually take the media limelight off his players for important matches – a tactic taken straight out of the Ferguson handbook.

Yet, when Mourinho doesn’t get the balance right, things go wrong incredibly quickly. Chelsea always seem to be accompanied by some sort of media circus and much of that stems back to the Portuguese’s first spell at Stamford Bridge, announcing his arrival with that infamous ‘Special One’ press conference performance.

During the interim, we’ve had the Real Madrid eye-poke episode, the controversial early handshakes, the ‘voyeur’ and ‘specialist in failure’ quips at Arsene Wenger and the Eva Carneiro scandal, none of which have particularly aided the efforts of Mourinho’s sides.

United fans are well acquainted with media sideshows but Mourinho takes the meaning of the phrase to a whole new level. The fact of the matter is that he lacks class and invites scrutiny onto his clubs, which inevitably creates unnecessary pressure.