Seven things which will happen when Jose Mourinho becomes Manchester United manager
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Updated 11/02/2016 at 12:37 GMT
Jose Mourinho's appointment, the papers claim, is a done deal. And if that's true, then it's just a matter of time before all these things happen too...
Jose Mourinho at Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium
Image credit: Reuters
1. There will be a coronation by fans and media
Forget Chelsea's implosion at the start of this season. Forget the talk of unrest, bad relationships with key players, and questionable decisions over the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Kevin de Bruyne. All that will be swept aside when Mourinho is handed the keys to the manager's office at Old Trafford.
United fans will forget all that, and see instead only guaranteed success. Pundits will - our own Paul Parker excepted - line up to deliver gushing praise of the Portuguese boss. The media will back him to the hilt, knowing that a healthy United under a successful Mourinho is what the vast majority of the viewing and reading public want to see.
And this time, that'll just be the start of it: with Pep Guardiola moving in at Manchester City, it won't be the same old Premier League feuds to get Mourinho going, it'll a resurrection of his favourite Liga feud. Mourinho has always done everything he can to feed the drama - no, the pantomime - of modern football. The chance to resurrect United, salvage his own reputation after the Chelsea debacle, and simultaneously debunk the achievements of Guardiola will be irresistible.
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Jose Mourinho celebrates with his medal after winning the Premier League
Image credit: Reuters
2. Ryan Giggs's management career will take a nosedive… but end up soaring
Ryan Giggs has had a curious start to his management career: as assistant manager to both David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, he has been an integral part of the set-up at Old Trafford during the club's worst spell since the 1980s. Yet somehow he has still come up smelling of roses, with even pundits such as our own beloved Jim White refusing to throw away their rose-tinted spectacles in their calls for him to be made the new club manager.
Any harder-nosed analysis - such as that produced for this very website by Richard Jolly a few weeks ago - suggests that Giggs would be at best an optimistic punt, and at worst a disaster waiting to happen. And Mourinho is nothing if not a hard-nosed analyst.
Having had his fingers burnt in his latest stint at Chelsea by his failure to manage the old hands and big names hanging around the dressing room, he will not make the same mistake twice. The old guard will be jettisoned, and as part of that Giggs will be shown the door.
It'll be the better for him, actually, since he can go out and actually prove the potential as a manager that fans have been trying to claim for him. Then, once Mourinho has run his course, Giggs can return in glory to take over having lead a Burnley or Preston to the Championship title.
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Jose Mourinho and Ryan Giggs - not likely to be seen together during 2016-17
Image credit: Eurosport
3. Wayne Rooney will leave Old Trafford
The United captain turns 31 later this year. It's now four years since he scored more than 20 goals in a season (a feat which he managed in 2011-12). Despite beating the England goal-scoring record in 2015, he is very obviously well past his best; indeed, when Louis van Gaal made him captain 18 months ago, many fans were surprised since they'd assumed that he wouldn't even be an automatic starter.
And under Jose Mourinho, he absolutely won't be. 30 isn't exactly old for a modern footballer, but then again there are few 35-year-olds who have as many footballing miles on the clock as Rooney does.
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Wayne Rooney - endangered just as Louis van Gaal is?
Image credit: AFP
Take Peter Crouch as an example. The beanpole striker is 35, and has played 676 games in his career for club and country; Rooney has played 695. And while more than 100 of Crouch's games came early in his career while out on loan with the likes of Dulwich Hamlet and IFK Hässleholm, all of Rooney's have been amassed in the Premier League. You could also have Jermain Defoe, at 33 three years Rooney's senior, and with just 641 games under his belt.
There will be two options: re-invent Rooney as, say, a holding midfielder to partner fellow-footballing OAP Bastian Schweinsteiger; or sell him to a Chinese club for £35 million and use his £300,000-a-week wages luring someone younger and better.
From Rooney's Instagram page the other day, it seems option two is the more likely.
4. There will be trouble… but not for a while
Thursday's Daily Mirror took a major step towards declaring the appointment of Mourinho as Manchester United manager. Thursday's Sun went a step further: they've bypassed the actual appointment itself, and are instead discussing the dressing room strife that's followed the decision.
"The way things unravelled at Chelsea in the six months after winning the title has set alarm bells ringing among some senior stars," the paper claims.
Yet a look at Mourinho's record actually suggests the opposite is true, at least at first: at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid, he successfully augmented talented squads with a few judicious purchases and moulded them into title-winning teams.
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Jose Mourinho lifts the Champions League trophy with Inter Milan
Image credit: Reuters
5. A vast amount of money will be spent
The Glazers are 21st century money men, through-and-through. As such, they had no fear of backing a manager like Louis van Gaal to the tune of £250 million; and having thrown all that cash into the problem, they will have no worries about doubling down in the transfer market. They will spend until they either return United to the top of football, or take the club to the brink of insolvency.
So spending is certain. And in Mourinho they have a man - unlike stingy-fisted Arsene Wegner, or the chuck-it-around-and-hope-for-the-best types like Roberto Mancini - who knows how to spend. He spent vast amounts - over £700 million between 2004 and 2014, more than any other manager in world football - but has at least delivered results. Which brings us on to point number six…
6. Manchester United will win the title inside two years
In all his jobs he has won the title either in his first or second season in charge (or both, as in the case of Porto, Inter and his first stint at Chelsea). Simply put, Mourinho is the nearest thing to buying a title that football currently offers - far more so than Pep Guardiola, who has more to prove on that score.
The worry for United, of course, is what happens in year three...
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Manchester United's Javier Hernandez (C) lifts the English Premier League trophy at Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, northern England May 12, 2013
Image credit: AFP
7. Mourinho will leave in a cloud of controversy
Forget the seven-year-itch: for Mourinho, it's always three. He left both Porto and Inter Milan after two seasons; and he ran out of steam with both Real Madrid and Chelsea (both times) after two seasons.
The prognosis is certain, the end result inevitable: he will get fired after his magic wears off.
The only other option is that Mourinho would leave for a better job. If he's successful, there are only two better jobs - and given that's he already taken the helm at Real Madrid and would never be allowed to do so at Barcelona, we can write that scenario off completely.
In the unlikely event that he's not successful? Then those better jobs will no longer be available. Failure at United on the back of what has happened at Chelsea would mean that Mourinho then becomes too much of a risk. His career move in that instance would be what we might term the "Clive Woodward pension scheme": a life of well-paid punditry interspersed with ludicrously-well-paid corporate motivational talks.
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