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| Edited By: Nirmalya Dutta |Source: DNA webdesk |Updated: Dec 11, 2017, 05:36 PM IST
In 2004, Old Trafford’s tunnel turned into a set from a slapstick comedy movie after Manchester United ended Arsenal’s 49-match unbeaten run. There was a full-on brawl at the Old Trafford tunnel which culminated in an Arsenal player (legend says it was Fabregas), throwing a pizza at Sir Alex Ferguson.
It wasn’t the best night for professionalism but it did show how much the match meant to Manchester United and Arsenal, two of England’s top teams whose managers and players didn’t need a reason to ignite. Wenger and Ferguson’s relationship soured beyond belief and only in Ferguson’s latter years could they start talking cordially again.
Current United manager Mourinho, once had a similarly stormy relationship with Wenger. Yet, when Arsenal snapped Manchester United’s 25-game unbeaten streak, Mourinho was uncharacteristically unperturbed saying he was ‘happy’ for Arsenal fans and that his ‘league record’ against Wenger of no losses in 12 fixtures was ‘unnatural’.
One doesn’t expect such a meek reaction from Mourinho. The Portuguese who stated that after coming to Old Trafford he was the Happy One, has hardly given fans a reason to smile all season. After a season, where United’s title challenge was non-existent, Mourinho chose to even abandon the Premier League as it became clear that even a fourth spot was out of reach, instead choosing to focus on the Europa League.
Mourinho has argued this season can’t be called a failure, even if United fail to win the Europa League. He had said: “We won a League Cup. We won a Community Shield. Until the injuries arrived, we fought for the Premier League top four. We had a fantastic record of 25 matches [unbeaten]. We did things in this club that nobody did in the first season. Like winning a trophy, like having the record of Manchester United in the Premier League, unbeatable. Like reaching a European final.”
Sadly, the classic Jose spin doesn’t work and by no stretch of imagination can a season where Manchester United finished sixth be treated as a ‘success’. United brought in Mourinho to finally get rid of the post-Fergie blues and handed him a huge war chest by signing the Bundesliga Player of the Year in Henrikh Mkhitaryan, the world’s most expensive footballer in Paul Pogba, French Ligue 1 player of the year Zlatan Ibrahimovic and rock-solid centre back Eric Bailly. Yet none of these signings, except for Ibrahimovic can be deemed a success. Mkhitaryan’s flashes of brilliance has been rare, while Pogba has had more haircuts than goals or assists.
After spending a net GBP 117 pounds, United are sixth while Mourinho’s old team Chelsea, with a meagre net spend of simply GBP 20 comfortably won the league. And let’s not forget this was Conte’s first season in England, unlike Mourinho who has had two spells and is expected to perform better.
In the same vein, United’s performances against the other top 5 – Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Liverpool – were dismal with Mourinho’s team winning only 2 games (against Tottenham and Chelsea) and losing four of them.
The once-vaunted Theatre of Dreams was the venue of tepid draws with United drawing 10 of their 18 matches at Old Trafford and scoring a meagre 24 goals in 18 games. In fact, Old Trafford saw only a total of 36 goals all season which means Old Trafford was ‘the worst value for money’ in the Premier League with each goal costing the fans a hefty £15.37 per goal.
Mourinho’s famous man-management skills were also absent and his public castigating of players struck a raw nerve, which is in stark contrast to Ferguson’s man management. While Ferguson has often defended the indefensible from his players including Roy Keane’s public outbursts or Eric Cantona’s kung-fu kick on an unruly spectator, Mourinho hung his players out to dry in front of a venomous media.
People who have played for Mourinho, like Lampard used to say he galvanises people but the hangover of Chelsea’s implosion hasn’t left the Portuguese. His rants against players and their injuries, going to the extent of suggesting they were not ‘playing through their injuries’ was a very public condemnation of the club and its medical team.
Of course, it’s important to remember that some of his woes are self-inflicted and United’s squad would have looked better if he didn’t allow the likes of Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Depay and McNair leave mid-season. He has also publicly criticised Smalling, Jones, Shaw, Mkhitaryan, Lingard, Martial and Rashford, and one wonders what it does for the psyche of younger players when their manager seems like someone who can’t put a hand around them in their time of crisis.
And at the end of it all the fact remains, that finishing sixth and winning both the Europa League and EFL Cup is not a successful season for a club of United’s stature. Most United fans loved to take the mickey out of Liverpool for saying they won the ‘treble’ in 2000-01 when they won the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup, pointing out that only in 1999 was a proper treble – Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup – was achieved.
Yet now, United fans will have to contend with a season where all they will have to show as ‘success’ is an EFL Cup title and a possible Europa League victory. Lest we forget, a few years ago United fans used to laugh at the tournament, and the only reason it’s missing from the Old Trafford trophy cabinet is because they never played badly enough to qualify.
No matter how Mourinho spins it, the season was a failure for a club of Manchester United’s stature which should be challenging for the Champions League trophy with the Bayerns and Real Madrids of the world, not losing timidly to Tottenham Hotspurs. Dear Jose Mourinho, it is time you wake up and smell the coffee rather than indulging in lawyer like defence.
