Mourinho was right man at wrong time

IN the rush to capture a sheet of paper Jose Mourinho had unfolded at the press conference, a journalist spilt water over it. That was just at Mourinho's introduction as Manchester United manager.

- By SAMUEL LUCKHURST

From spilling water to spilling blood.

One of the most senior executives at United described Mourinho's final months at the club as 'death by a thousand cuts.'

Mourinho's defenestration was so pre-meditated that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer knew he would take caretaker charge eight weeks before his Manchester homecoming.

Mourinho only spent two and a half years in Manchester but his overdue status as United manager was a blockbuster event to trump Barbenheimer. The biggest mistake United made was not to have appointed him three years earlier.

Had Mourinho inherited Sir Alex Ferguson's title-winners in 2013, he would have demanded - and got key signings, commanded immediate respect of the dressing room, maintained their hunger and United might have rode roughshod over an undaunting Premier League terrain.

United are still on 20 titles partly - through their decision-making around Mourinho. He is their best à manager of the post-Ferguson era s and the most undermined. Ed Woodward vetoed moves for Mouro inho's signing recommendations e during the 2018 summer transfer e window and cultivated a playerpower culture by siding with Paul Pogba and Anthony Martial.

Mourinho sensed he was on bor- rowed time the moment France won the World Cup in mid-July.

In-fighting had begun with Pogba, whose ego ballooned to leave Mourinho fighting a lost .cause. He still went down with a fight.

Pogba was stripped of the vice-captaincy and eventually dropped.

He came to define Mourinho's final months almost as much as the United manager did. Tellingly, Pogba was an unused substitute during Mourinho's final stand at Anfield.

When he returned to Old Trafford at the start of the 2019-20 season for the opening weekend thrashing of Chelsea, Mourinho was serenaded by the Stretford End. That same corner urged Pogba to leave in no uncertain terms on his last appearance in 2022.