When Manchester United made Jose Mourinho their new manager, a lot of people like yours truly believed that United has chosen trophies above style. Do you blame us? Mourinho has been known as one of the most pragmatic managers in the game. He has a reputation of winning by whatever means possible, whether pretty or ugly. Comparing that to the tradition at Old traford where they pride themselves in playing an expansive, attacking football, it is contradictory.
There is also a small matter of their noisy neighbours signing a certain Pep Guadiola, the man who oversaw the best Barca team in histroy. His team plays the kind of football that Manchester United fans will want to be watching, week-in week-out. But City trumps them to the signing of the Spanish coach. Many United fans must have been angry with the board for not making good effort to snap up Guardiola. But Mourinho has made a surprised debut season in the old Trafford hot seat. Already, he has the EFL cup in the cabinet and his team is favourite to win the Europa league, and top four finish is also a possibility.
Well, non of this is a surprise if you know the man who calls himself the ‘Special One’. What is surprising is the kind of football they have played throughout the season. It is not the kind of football you will associate with Jose Mourinho. He has gotten his team to play a brand of football that the Old traford faithful always demand from their team. This is a prove that he is a manager who improves himself and can adapt to his environment.
Mourinho’s United created an average of 20 goal scoring chances per game in Old traford. Every visiting team’s goalkeeper becomes an hero to stop a rampaging United from scoring. No doubt they have dropped some unforgivable points at home, but this is a better team compare to what we saw during Van Gaal’s two year reign.
The other question that came to mind when Mourinho took over the reign at Old traford was will he be able to groom young players coming from the academy into the first team? He has also done admirably well on this front too. He has given Marcus Rashford a whopping 22 EPL appearance, with 11 starts and 11 substitute appearance. Rashford seems to be ahead of captain Rooney in Mourinho’s pecking order presently. Jese Lingàrd has also had a fare share of appearance in all competition, and you can see the manager has a lot of confidence in him with starting role EFL cup final.
No doubt, Mourinho has perfectly fit-in into the Manchester United way better than we all thought. And it seems, at the moment, that the red half of Manchester has the better deal. Things can only get better for Mourinho and the United fans.
