Jose Mourinho is currently a free man after being fired by AS Roma. Meanwhile, MU is in decline when Erik ten Hag seems to have “run out of magic”. Should a reunion between the Red Devils and “The Special One” happen?
People in the same situation
The curse of the third season still seems to have not stopped haunting Mourinho. After Chelsea, Real Madrid, MU, Tottenham and most recently Roma, the Portuguese strategist had to leave in tears after the team’s performance went down.
Less than 2 years after leading the Giallorossi to win the first European championship in history – the Conference League, Mourinho was fired after one of the worst seasons in Roma history.
With his reputation, there will always be clubs willing to roll out the red carpet to invite Mourinho back. The question is: should they?
Meanwhile, MU is also experiencing the worst season in history. They have rarely had a positive performance since the beginning of the 2023/24 season. Coach Erik ten Hag has caused the Red Devils to receive 14 losses in all competitions and constantly face the risk of being fired.
There have been many matches where MU narrowly escaped and Ten Hag’s chair was miraculously rescued. But of course, luck won’t last forever and it’s time for the Dutch teacher to leave when the Red Devils still show no signs of being able to stabilize.
Who will Man United turn to if Ten Hag is replaced? Will there be an emotional reunion with Mourinho?
There is no chance of success
However, don’t be fooled by emotions. Returning to Mourinho would be completely meaningless for MU at this stage. The Red Devils have often been in disarray over the past decade and let’s not forget how much chaos the Portuguese tactician caused in his final months at Old Trafford.
The team performed poorly in the early months of the 2018/19 season, and it all started last summer with Mourinho publicly criticizing the club for its lack of transfer funds. These statements come just a few weeks after a season in which they ranked 2nd in the Premier League rankings.
Since leaving MU, Mourinho’s subsequent stints with Tottenham and Roma have shown that he is not willing to adapt to the modern style of play. In just a few months it will be 20 years since this personality coach led Porto to an unbelievable Champions League championship.
That win was built on a defense-first approach. A year later, Mourinho won the Premier League with Chelsea only conceding 15 goals – a feat that may never be seen again.
But since then, football has changed. Mourinho’s tactical thinking dates back to the 2000s, just before Pep Guardiola’s revolution transformed European football into what it is today.
Mourinho’s cautious tactics are no longer suitable for modern football. His unique player management style was only effective in the early years of the new millennium.
Although Mourinho may soon bring back titles, the price to pay is huge. “The Special One” brought the League Cup and Europa League championship to MU, but to get that, he made the club spend hundreds of millions of pounds on expensive rookies.
Mourinho brought Roma his first European Cup less than two years ago, but that came after a summer in which Roma spent 100 million euros on new players.
That is a huge amount of money for this team. The only successful signing among the rookies in Summer 2021 is Tammy Abraham, who is currently recovering from a serious injury.
Football changes, Mourinho does not
At Roma, Mourinho looks to the past rather than the future. He was once worshiped as a god by the fans of this team. Until the recent elimination from the Coppa Italia by city rivals Lazio, those same people turned to criticize the “Special One”.
Perhaps Mourinho now represents something that has disappeared from the golden years of Italian football. Watching his Roma play is like returning to Serie A in the 1980s and 1990s.
Defense is the most important factor and scoring goals becomes something special. That is not today’s Serie A, when top teams like Inter Milan, AC Milan, Atalanta and Lazio all play in a modern, attacking style.
Instead, Mourinho’s was a nostalgia trip that turned sour. Two sixth-place finishes proved that, even if his methods still worked in UEFA’s lower European competitions.
If the Portuguese strategist is brought back to Manchester, he will completely change the Red Devils’ playing style compared to the method that Ten Hag is trying to build. And the process of modernizing a club stuck in the past since Alex Ferguson retired will be pushed back again.
The former Chelsea manager can be an interesting person and will always attract attention wherever he goes. But all recent evidence points to one thing: football has changed, Jose has not.
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