Give Mourinho a chance!

I have been waiting for a while to write about Jose Mourinho especially during this turbulent times under Louis Van Gaal. The depths Manchester United have sunk to within just 3 years after arguably the greatest manager that football has ever seen, Sir Alex Ferguson, retired has been unbelievable. For a side so used to winning, the prospect of going 3 consecutive seasons without winning a major trophy makes this period excruciating. We, the United faithfuls, thought we had a world class manager who was going to oversee the return of the club back to its glory days after the wreckage caused by David Moyes. Little did we know, we were in for another tough ride. After spending £250 million, our squad looks woefully inadequate for competing for the title. The club's football has taken a dire change for the worse. At the time of writing this report, United were 6 points adrift of Manchester City in the battle for fourth with just 12 games left to play.

With the imminent arrival of Pep Guardiorla at Manchester City, only one man can lead Manchester United   to compete effectively against their noisy neighbours in terms of attracting players and churning out results on the pitch. That man is Jose Mourinho. I have always been been a fan of Jose Mourinho because he is a winner. His knack for making champions out of certain teams that have underachieved in certain tournaments is very impressive. He led Unaio de Leiria to their highest ever placing on the Portuguese league. Under Mourinho's tutelage, the Porto won their first Champions league eliminating several favourites like Manchester United, Deportivo La Coruna and Olympique Lyonnais in the process. The Portuguese coach also led Chelsea to their first league triumph in 50 years with the highest points ever achieved in the Premier league (95) and the lowest goals conceded (15) in a single season. The achievement list goes on and on, not forgetting the treble he won with Inter Milan.

So why is there division in the United board and fans in appointing Mourinho to take over? A coach with 22 team trophies and 28 individual trophies excluding coaches of the month awards is certainly the man needed to control the affairs of Old Trafford. His haters will say he is always followed by controversies which is against the code of conduct of coaches under the United tradition. Ferguson wasn't a saint either, even though he didn't go as far as poking someone's eyes, he sometimes uttered inflammatory comments. In 1997, Ferguson was quoted saying this about Arsene Wenger "He's a novice and should keep his opinions to Japanese football". Not forgetting the Scot's 'fight' with John Magnier, United's largest shareholder at the time, that led to Irish horse racing tycoon selling his shares to the Glazers among others. Van Gaal is not different, several players have expressed their 'hate' for him. Let's not go far, let's take the situations with Di Maria, Valdes and recently Marcos Rojo as examples. 

Before I go on, let me ask this question: Would you take Luiz Suarez at Manchester United? I am sure you answered 'yes' for footballing reasons irrespective of what the player had done in the past. The Suarez situation before he arrived at Barcelona is the similar to Mourinho's now. People including many Barcelona legends and fans condemned the club for even considering signing Suarez. However, a season and a half later, their tunes have changed. I will tell you what Barcelona did with Suarez, in the Uruguayan, they saw massive ability which needed some behavioral control. What they did was to put in place psychological help for the player to curb his bad behaviours. This has allowed Suarez to flourish into arguably the best player in the world at the moment on current form.  We can do similar for Mourinho by allowing the former Chelsea coach sign a behavioral contract. This would place a check on his behaviour and also allow the Portuguese to input his winning mentality back into the veins of our players. I think we should all give Mourinho a chance!