Paper Round: Mourinho - my life is a disaster

Jose Mourinho is having a bad week, and it's not going to be made better by the Mirror's back page, detailing all his complaints about living in a hotel in Manchester, focusing mostly on missing his family.

Paper Round's view: It would be easy to scorn Mourinho for this - after all, living in a fabulous hotel and working in a much-coveted, well-paid job is not really a physical hardship. But you have to sympathise with him missing his family, especially if he has no plans to find a permanent home in Manchester; it's no wonder that he and his team have not had a settled time of it if he is not entirely happy.

With all the Jose Mourinho-related worry, everyone's forgotten about Louis van Gaal. The Independent remind us of his tenure with a report that the Dutchman and his coaching staff didn't think Henrikh Mkhitaryan was cut out for the Premier League.

Paper Round's view: This all seems to stem from the idea that players from the Bundesliga are ill-equipped for the physical challenges of the Premier League, and the midfielder hasn't quite adjusted to the new demands from his game. It seems rather a sweeping generalisation, but what is interesting is the timing of this story, essentially questioning Mourinho's judgement - some United fans are surely feeling a little nostalgic for the era of Van Gaal at the moment.

The new TV rights deal bonanza for the FA Cup means that there'll be no winter break for Premier League clubs for the next ten years, according to the Times. Because the cup clashes need to happen at weekends, there would be no other time in the calendar to squeeze them in.

Paper Round's view: The winter break gets talked about a lot, but Paper Round cannot help but have a sneaking feeling that it will never happen. Football fans in England enjoy their Boxing Day and New Year's Day matches far too much for them to be swept aside - and with television rights holding so much sway, broadcasters won't be keen to have matches utterly wiped from their festive schedules.

Antonio Conte is all set for the heat of a local derby - and wants Chelsea fans to be as hyped as possible against West Ham, regardless of the potential for crowd trouble, according to the Daily Star.

Paper Round's view: All very well for Conte to be blase about always being the same kind of manager, wanting to encourage the fans to show their support, and to ignore the possibility of crowd trouble - he's not going to be in the middle of it, is he? Still, security at the London Stadium is likely to be tight for the EFL Cup tie, so fingers crossed there will be no problems at all.