The Warm-Up: Jose Mourinho's Damned United

He has admittedly lasted longer than Brian Clough's 44 days at Leeds but there is increasingly something reminiscent of Old Big Head's spectacular implosion at Elland Road about Jose Mourinho's increasingly chaotic reign at Manchester United.

The struggle to replace a beloved predecessor who still casts a huge shadow over the club; the 'disaster' of his life in Manchester; the tension with senior figures in the dressing room. The loathing. The loathing. The loathing. This unfolding psychodrama would make for a good novel.

A 2-1 defeat to Fenerbahce on Thursday night means United have only two wins in their past seven games. Worse, Mourinho now officially has a worse record than Louis van Gaal and David Moyes did at this stage of their United careers. The man whose caustic personality was overlooked because he was supposed to restore United to winning ways has arguably taken them backwards.

So who is responsible? The Jose Blame Game picks vulnerable targets with the precision of the Daily Mail: referees, rival managers and even club doctors are not immune from being given public goings over. But this time it's his own players - a move straight out of Mourinho's season three playbook, not usually season one.

"A team that concedes after two minutes is a team that is not ready, not mentally prepared, not focused, not concentrated," he said, brushing over the fact that he is responsible for all these things. "Our problems started in our global attitude. They were playing the Champions League final, we were playing a summer friendly."

Nothing good comes of this. The dressing room leaks have already been going on for weeks and with Mourinho's latest comments the whole thing has the stench of death around it already. The Warm-Up can't wait for the film adaptation.

And so to a club which evokes memories of the last time Mourinho was truly at the top of world football: Inter. In the season Mourinho won the treble with the Nerazzurri, 2009-10, Southampton won the humble Johnstone's Paint Trophy, but last night the grand old Italian club were beaten 2-1 at St Mary's in a victory which means Southampton will reach the last-32 of the Europa League if they beat Sparta Prague in their next match.

Inter aren't exactly one of the giants of the game any more, and are a club in turmoil having just sacked Frank de Boer, but it was a fine night for Claude Puel's side as a goal from Virgil van Dijk and an own goal from Yuto Nagatomo overturned the opener scored by Mauro Icardi.

Southampton's recent history has been a story of continual improvement, despite regular managerial changes, and beating Inter in Europe establishes a new high point for a club which is going about its work intelligently and carefully. Maybe there's a moral in there for clubs who chuck truckloads of money at players and coaches without having the underlying idea to prop it all up.

PS. What an own goal.

The Warm-Up cannot find anything which links Mourinho and Aritz Aduriz - maybe they once stayed in neighbouring luxury villas in the Seychelles? Maybe Aduriz also nurses a deep dislike for Arsene Wenger? - but it would be remiss not to mention the fact that the Athletic Bilbao striker scored ALL FIVE GOALS in the club's 5-3 win over Genk last night.

He's 35 for god's sake.

The tortured psyche of Manchester United in one picture:

Jack Lang touched on the despair which the Poppy War (copyright: the Daily Mail, where irony has apparently died, along with taste, decency and humanity) inflicts upon the soul earlier this week. Over at Joe, big-name signing Tony Barrett artfully pulls apart the nonsense argument that the poppy is not a political symbol and explains how the right-wing press worked itself into a frenzy over this issue over the course of a number of years.

If 2016 has taught us anything it's that calm and sober voices will prevail so The Warm-Up is pretty convinced this will be the end of it.

The highlight of the weekend's football has to be Sunday's North London derby as Arsenal host Tottenham at 12pm. It's a fixture which has consistently delivered in the Premier League era, not least in this classic iteration. Quite the baptism of fire for new Spurs boss Martin Jol.

It's the usual smattering of lower league and global football. Sky are showing Brentford v Fulham in the Championship and Malaga v Sporting Hee-hon in Spain. BT are even more eclectic with Hertha Berlin v Gladbach in Germany, Partick Thistle v Aberdeen in Scotland and Montpellier v Marseille in France. Oh, and the FA Cup first round sees Eastleigh take on Swindon Town on BBC Two.