Manchester United have won all seven games that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been in charge. They go for number eight Friday night at Arsenal in a fourth round FA Cup clash. Although match day isn’t until the end of the week, there is still plenty of United topics to discuss, as we’re heading down the home stretch of the January transfer window.
Let’s take a spin through the inter webs and see what’s buzzing in Man United cyberspace.
Sparsely used defender Matteo Darmian has been rumored to be leaving United the past few transfer windows, and this January is no different. Almost every time that he’s been linked with an exit, it’s to clubs in his native Italy.
Juventus are currently the frontrunners to acquire his services according to the Guardian. As it stands now, Darmian would move initially to the ruling oligarchs of Serie A on a loan deal, but Juve would have an option to sign the right back on a permanent basis.
The 29-year-old’s contract is set to expire this summer. He was acquired in the summer of 2015, back when Louis van Gaal was in charge.
So what has Jose Mourinho been up to since United paid him a lot of money to go away? Well, he did two games of punditry work on BeIN Sports, and ESPN did a fascinating recap of how it went.
Mourinho’s observations and opinions as a TV talking head aren’t too far off from the things he used to say in his press conferences as his Old Trafford tenure was winding down.
His tone was apparently more bitter and biting than how he came off doing TV work for RT during the World Cup this past summer.
Some highlights from the ESPN FC piece (and don’t these kind of sound like the things he used to say every Friday afternoon during his news conferences?)
He insisted that Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola and Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp are only having so much success because they have had the full support of their clubs — overlooking the fact that he spent just short of £400m on new players during five transfer windows at United.
He then hit out at what he perceived to be double standards in terms of how the pair were viewed in comparison to him. “When Mourinho behaves bad on the touchline, when Mourinho kicks a bottle, when Mourinho does this, when Mourinho does that, he’s out, he’s suspended, he’s paying for this,” he said.
“When Jurgen [Klopp] does, he’s special. When Pep [Guardiola] does, he’s special. When Mourinho does, he’s out.” He even had time to take a swipe at Mauricio Pochettino’s failure to win any trophies at Tottenham, before spending a long period discussing his own successes at Chelsea back in 2004-07.
Yikes! I can’t imagine the world’s top clubs are going to be beating down a path to his Hotel Lowry (or wherever he moved to now) door to try and hire him after that.
It is worth noting that Mourinho has been linked to a return to coaching in his native Portugal though.
Speaking of management, United legend Paul Scholes is set to soon be named the next manager of Oldham Athletic. The Manchester Evening News has more on what Scholesy could expect as he begins first managerial gig.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.