manchester debby

COMMENT
Jose Mourinho must wake up each morning
with the same kind of feeling he had during
his latter days at Chelsea. Right now, it’s not
working; the shine’s worn off. At Chelsea he
at least had a freshly-pocketed Premier
League winner’s medal which had the shine
very much still on.
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It feels as though Mourinho has skipped
right past the league titles which propped up
his regimes at Real Madrid and Stamford
Bridge and gone straight to the meltdowns
that finished him off.
It’s hard to know what’s going to work for
Manchester United in the games upcoming -
including Wednesday's EFL Cup derby at
home against Manchester City -  or what’s
going to turn it all around.
It’s not as though they have been awaiting
the return from injury of a clutch of first-
team players. What has been available to
Mourinho, he’s largely played. In the case of
Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Bastian
Schweinsteiger, he’s neglected even to do
that such are the choices at his disposal.
You might think that once January rolls
around he will have the opportunity to bring
in a couple of players to freshen things up.
That is not how Sir Alex Ferguson conducted
business at Old Trafford and it is a sign of
disorganisation and desperation when a
team lives window to window.
He has made his statements – banishing
Schweinsteiger and binning Wayne Rooney
from the starting lineup – but has as yet
been unable to jolt his team into anything
like the effectiveness drawn from their first
few performances. He’s trying the same
things but they are not coming off.
After an imperious, near-record breaking
start, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has found
goals harder to come by on a consistent
basis. Mourinho cannot seem to decide what
he likes in midfield aside from excluding the
personnel he clearly doesn’t like from the
first-team squad altogether. He's now got
problems in the backline with Eric Bailly
ruled out for two months.
Muller: The days of towel theft at Bayern
are gone
It would be difficult to ascertain Mourinho’s
preferred XI currently given the poverty in
the performances of most of his players. We
know what he would like to do; line them up
in a 4-2-3-1 and for everyone to play to
their potential. That’s what happened earlier
in the season but, gradually, it’s all begun
to fade.
The 1-2 derby defeat to City rocked through
Old Trafford like an earthquake and United
have yet to truly recover their balance. There
have been decent wins eked out here and
there but nothing like the level expected of a
title-chasing team or even a team looking to
hit the top four.
There is a something of a similarity between
the struggles currently being endured by
Mourinho and those down the road at
Eastlands featuring one Pep Guardiola
though they wouldn't like to admit it. Neither
is a crisis but it’s how a crisis starts.
Like Mourinho, Pep’s team got off to a flyer
and at one stage it wouldn’t have looked out
of place if the bookmakers began to pay out
on a City title win. They hared off on a 10-
game winning streak but their momentum was
abruptly halted by Celtic in the Champions
League. Since then they have been in a
tailspin.
Pep, like Mourinho, is doing nothing patently
different and that must perplex him. He’s
putting out the same players, broadly in the
same shape, but it’s just not happening.
Guardiola wants Toure return
PLAY
Guardiola said in a press conference last
week when defending his methods: “I’ve won
21 trophies in seven years.” There was no
mistaking the individualism in the remark
but it’s not Pep out there placing errant back
passes straight to opposition strikers, it’s
John Stones. It’s not Pep who’s kicking the
ball directly to Luis Suarez and subsequently
handling the ball outside the area, it’s
Claudio Bravo.
That which Pep wants to build for Manchester
City is being undermined on a daily basis by
the players he entrusted to do the heavy
lifting.
Guardiola has admittedly met the two
imposters – triumph and disaster – just the
same. In fairness to him, he didn't get
carried away with the winning streak. He has
spoken about the time needed for his
methods to take hold. That’s a fair point but
both he and Mourinho are in the wrong game
if they reckon they will get it.
City and United are indeed looking for a
long-term identity them but that won’t be
permitted to come at the expense of short
term results.
The average life expectancy of a coach in
English football is currently about a year
and three months. Sure, it might be early
days in the reigns of Pep and indeed Jose,
but that equates to roughly a quarter of a
life cycle these days.
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Pep and Jose have been born, raised, gone
through school and are close to graduating
from university. Give it another three months
and they’ll be having a midlife crisis. That’s
how quick things are moving.
This derby then has much more significance
than either would like. Some team has to go
out. Someone has to lose. Someone’s record
has to take another hit.
Millions were spent – on wages and transfer
fees – and there simply is no excuse for the
demanding hordes. Results and
performances under Louis van Gaal and
Manuel Pellegrini were deemed intolerable
and the best possible replacements sourced.
Fans in Manchester - while not entitled -
are expectant. They have the money, the
power, the coaches, where are the results?
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