José Mourinho will be an instant success at Manchester United

This season it will be all different. This time he will be playing to regain his prestige and the lost legacy of MUFC.

Haider Zulfiqar June 11, 2016
José Mourinho, widely regarded as one of the best managers of the current era, is coming to the team he used to call “a giant club” – Manchester United. On May 27, 2016, Mourinho penned a three-year contract deal with an option to stay with the club until at least 2020. 

Will Manchester United finally go back to its old form?

It’s fascinating to see “The Special One” at The Theatre of Dreams. He has been there many times before, but now he comes there not to be on the opposite end, but on the touchlines to guide and lift the team to higher ranks.

It seems only yesterday when a young guy came to Old-Trafford with Porto. And over the years he has developed respect for Manchester United. He remembers Sir Alex Fergusson with club captain, Gary Neville, going into the dressing room and shaking players’ hands and congratulating them on a big victory.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho gestures to Porto fans as they chant his name.Photo: Reuters

It’s seems odd that some experts and fans don’t believe he’ll bring any success to Manchester United. But his record speaks of success. When he came to Chelsea in 2004, Mourinho instantly changed the core of Chelsea FC, transforming them into a team that won a championship by 12 points. Then, in the Champions League, he beat Bayern Munich and Barcelona in the Round of 16 and QF stages before being eliminated in the semi-finals by the eventual champions, Liverpool.

Likewise, at Inter Milan, he made a seemingly improbable task an ordinary one, winning the first treble in Italian Football history. At Real Madrid he beat probably the best Barcelona team ever before guiding the team to its 32nd La Liga title in his second spell in charge. When he returned to Chelsea in 2013, he won the title two years later.

It all means that Mourinho comes to Old Trafford with loads of experience at winning.

Mourinho likes hard-working players with pace, who track back on defence, run harder on the counter-attack, create space, widen the play, and are good in the air. With Manchester United’s lack of goal-scoring threats, Mourinho can go all-in by signing a new striker. That could very well be Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who’s a free agent. It may also be Alvaro Morata.

Ibrahimovic to be Mourinho's main man.Photo: Reuters

Alvaro Morata has scored just half as many goals as Olivier Giroud this season.Photo: Reuters

In the midfield zone, Manchester United hasn’t had anyone capable since Paul Scholes’s departure. Mourinho may go hard in the transfer market and sign someone like Paul Pogba or Marco Verratti. In the defence zone, Chris Smalling needs a better partner. With Phil Jones perennially being injured, and Daley Blind exposing himself in some of the big games, it’s there to see what Mourinho does to sort out the defensive problems.

Manchester United's Phil Jones collides with Sunderland's Craig Gardner during their English Premier League soccer match at Old Trafford in Manchester.Photo: Reuters

Daley Blind was brought over to United from Ajax Amsterdam by Louis van Gaal two years ago.Photo: Reuters

Mourinho finally got the player, Wazza, who he has tried to sign with two different clubs, but failed both times. Now, Wazza is nowhere near the standards he has set for himself. Mourinho has said on a number of occasions in the past that Wazza’s best position is striker. But it will be interesting to see where Wazza plays considering his lack of goal-scoring form in the recent season. If he can get the best out of him, there’s no reason to doubt that United will be in the driving seat in the title race.

Oblivious to any concern in bracketing Wayne Rooney with Paul Gascoigne, England's players have taken the Gazza moniker and adapted it in the teenager's honour by dubbing him Wazza.Photo: Reuters

Teenage sensation, Marcus Rashford, who burst onto the stage last season with eight goals in all competitions, will be one to see along with guys like Borthwick and Fotsu Mensah. Mourinho will finally be looking to work with young guns instead of loaning them, which is something he’s not used to.

Marcus Rashford to remain in Man-U till 2020 as striker signs new deal.Photo: Reuters

This season it will all be very different for Mourinho. This time he will be playing to regain his prestige and the lost legacy of MUFC. Mourinho is a born winner who doesn’t like losing. He won’t forget his last season in Chelsea, but he’ll be looking to prove doubters wrong, proving that he still “has it”.

Manchester United fans will be all up to support their new manager. Their expectations are high and he’s fully aware of that. But, this time, the reception, the love, the support he has gotten from fans is something that he has not experienced before. It will light a fire in him to achieve even more success.

So, yeah, it’s everyone’s right to look forward to a fulfillment of all their expectations.

Mourinho is a serial winner, a born winner and he will be an instant success.
WRITTEN BY:
Haider Zulfiqar The author has recently done his FSc from PAF College, Sargodha. He is interested in almost all sports including football, cricket, tennis etc. He is also a Manchester United fan. He tweets @Jose_Red_Army (https://twitter.com/Jose_Red_Army)
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (4)

Silvester Stanis Pandiaraj | 7 years ago | Reply How it came in to ET. I never new ET has a mancunian blog Poorer that articles in some of the fan based sites
Phantom | 7 years ago | Reply United fans expecting their team to return to its swashbuckling ways will be disappointed. Mourinho plays ugly and plays for winning short term. Don't expect him to build teams that can last a decade. He builds for short term success and usually when he leaves after a couple of years, the teams struggle to remain competitive and require rebuilding (inter, real, Chelsea). Moreover, he hasn't shown the sort of personality to remain in a team more than a couple of years. The teams he is used to managing so far have been used to success. Inter, Madrid and the Chelsea that he inherited were all doing well when he got them. Now at United he will inherit a someone lower performing team. With a lot of rebuilding required and a short time before his honeymoon with the fans is usually over...I don't see a very long stay for him at united.
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