Jose Mourinho loves to gripe about…well, name a topic and he’s publicly taken issue with it. However, this summer preseason tour has seen Mourinho take on another added level or malcontent. Certainly so by preseason standards, when almost everybody is still brimming with optimism.
In recent media opportunities, the Portugese Coach also seems to be preemptively putting forth more excuses for future failure than usual. While this is a tried and true method he has often used to play mind games against his opponents (quite often very successfully), it seems to be taking on a different tone this summer.
The Manchester United manager is apparently weighed down by two major factors that are not going/haven’t gone his way.
The first in the summer transfer window which has been rather dull for United in 2018, and especially boring when you juxtapose it with the first two summer windows of the Mourinho era at United which were brought big money spending and a ton of excitement. Mourinho is known for always wanting to get his transfer business done early, and this summer, with the window closing much earlier than usual, it’s an even greater priority.
As you can see from reading the comments posted at this link, the window is not going Mourinho’s way.
The second major factor making Mourinho more ornery than usual is the current composition of his squad. With so many players have served extensive tours of international duty in the World Cup, the Portugese was forced to bring a very young squad filled with inexperienced players over to the states.
“We are not a team. We’re a group of players from different teams,” Mourinho told club web channel MUTV.
“Some are first-team, some under-23s, some coming from loans and going on loan, some are younger, under-18s. We don’t have a team to play much better than we did but [it’s] one more training session.”
Apparently being in one of his favorite places on Earth, the warm sunshine of southern California, isn’t brightening his mood. It’s understandable though given how Mourinho is currently now without the services of:
Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Maraoune Fellaini, Jesse Lingard, Phil Jones, Ashley Young, Marcus Rashford, Victor Lindelof, Marcos Rojo and new addition Fred. Also missing but expected to join the team soon are Nemanja Matic and David de Gea.
Thus Mourinho definitely has a strong case to back up his words.
However, on the flip side, the cupboard isn’t totally bare for Mourinho right now. In addition to the all the talented promising youngsters hungry to make the most of this opportunity to prove themselves, he also has Juan Mata, Eric Bailly, Luke Shaw, Anthony Martial, Ander Herrera and Alexis Sanchez available for selection.
Not to mention the fact that it’s preseason! This is about reps and development, not results.
Of course, Mourinho has very high standards for himself and his team, so he expects a lot. That’s a good trait to have, as his ambition has been critical to making him successful.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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