Manchester United have not been the same since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, and obviously that’s not news. David Moyes, Sir Alex’s hand-picked successor was out after just ten months, as the “guided” a team that had won the Premier League title the previous season to a seventh place finish.
Then came Louis van Gaal, who didn’t win much during his two seasons as Manchester United manager.
The only trophy he earned was the FA Cup, and that came in his very last match, one in which it was already common knowledge that he was on his way out. Van Gaal did bring United back into Champions League football his first season, but they couldn’t advance to the knockout round, and then finished outside the top four in his second season.
On the same exact day that Van Gaal is back in the headlines for lifting the lid on why he was sacked, and giving his take on his dismissal, comments made by current manager Jose Mourinho related to this topic are trending too.
In a widely linked, highly excerpted and extremely revealing interview with the Sunday Times, Mourinho said that the club failed to evolve under both Moyes and Van Gaal.
He said: “There was an evolution in the other clubs; there was no evolution in this club. In all the areas that make a team successful I think we stopped in time.
“That was quite an empty period in the club with no evolution in areas that are important. It was the weight of the past on the shoulders of the players, managers, even boards, even probably owners, because when you are used to win and win and win, and suddenly you stop, it’s like a heavy burden.”
“Today, we have better working conditions, a better medical department, a better analysis department, a better scouting department, a better media department, and in many cases we did it without changing the people, which is quite important.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Sound Cloud, LinkedIn and YouTube.