No Sympathy For Mourinho

There is no sympathy for Jose Mourinho and his recent complaints about money to spend on players, say the Sunday Supplement panel.

The Manchester United boss has been vocal in recent weeks about being unable to compete with clubs like Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain in the transfer market.

But the trio of journalists on Sunday Supplement said Mourinho will not have anyone feeling sorry for him, with Jason Burt questioning if it could be the beginning of end for the Portuguese at Old Trafford.

Here's what the panel had to say on the topic...

Martin Samuel (Chief sports writer, Daily Mail)

He's going to get no sympathy, that's the first thing, and you will never get any sympathy as manager of Manchester United because you are perceived to have every advantage in the world. He's on really rocky ground with the money thing, for instance, and once you've spent over £300m, you can't complain about someone spending £40m more than you have. If you throw £300m at a project, you should be able to produce a decent product out of that and for a lot of the season, they have done.

I do think the start of the season gave a slightly false impression of where they were because it was just uncannily generous to them. You couldn't have plotted a set of fixtures where you play practically everyone in what was the bottom half of the table.

So that gave them this great forward momentum which they have managed to lose and now there does seem to be a lot of moaning. I can't see how Mourinho ever thinks he wins that argument by continuing to sit in front of people and complaining. You're the manager of Manchester United, it's one of the richest clubs in the world.

Man City haven't got a £75m striker and they've never spent as much on a midfield player as Man Utd did on Paul Pogba. If we're talking about the inflation of full-backs, it started with Luke Shaw at Man Utd, and we have this perception of full-backs where people are saying 'oh he's only a full-back, why is he £50m?' but if you look at some of the best teams in the world, the full-backs are just about the most important players in the team half the time.

If you look the full-backs at Man City in terms of playing the way Pep Guardiola wants to this season, it's all about getting the right full-backs and the whole system is about them. Basically, I don't see how he [Mourinho] wins that one. You're not going to win points for a conversation and you don't get three points for a good press conference.

Jason Burt (Chief football correspondent, Telegraph)

I think there are so many complaints now and you hear people close to Mourinho complain about the United board, Ed Woodward, the structure of the club, the ownership, about money available, the player, the facilities - it starts to sound like it's everything and when it gets like that with him, you're heading in one direction.

I may be wrong, but it may well be that he is trying to provoke something. Is he trying to provoke Man Utd to do something or provoke them to invite him to leave? He doesn't seem happy to me at all, he is obviously blaming everything, the money argument is absolute nonsense and doesn't make any sense whatsoever. He's a compelling arguer, but when you go back through it, none of it holds water.

For example, in the Manchester derby, eight of the 11 players were inherited by Guardiola and Martin absolutely nailed it with the full-backs which shows to me that Mourinho doesn't understand the modern game. Guardiola spent all this money on full-backs - one of whom has been injured all season - because he needs them to play the way he wants to play. To me, Mourinho is playing football from ten years ago and this is football that dominated then, but he has not moved on.

What puzzles me is that Man Utd should provide the perfect conditions for him. There's no internal politics or back-biting and there's no one trying to undermine him at the club whatsoever, but it is just not working. I look at it now and think: 'where is he heading? Where is this all going?' There will be a pinch point fairly soon where it has to be decided if he wants to carry on.

It's a very similar narrative in many ways to what's happened before when he's left other clubs. If he wants to stay as Man Utd manager, he needs to stop this because it is going in one direction at the moment and that's against him.

Darren Lewis (Football writer, Mirror)

You have to predicate any conversation about Mourinho by recognising what he's given to the game. He's been fantastic in different countries, winning Champions Leagues and titles and whatever else, but I think as far as this whole bizarre debate is concerned, he is not going to get any sympathy.

Quite clearly Man City have spent a fortune, but it is also about how Guardiola has improved players who some people thought might be on their way. Fabian Delph at left-back, Fernandinho in midfield, many people dismissed John Stones and now he is a key player in that team when he's fit. Nicolas Otamendi, Eliaquim Mangala and he inherited Kevin de Bruyne. What Guardiola has is a well drilled, creative system that the players all buy in to.

As far as Mourinho is concerned, yes he is winning games and scoring goals, but there looks to be a lethargy about how they play. Everyone who looks at this whole debate about the money will not have sympathy for Mourinho precisely for the reasons that Martin described. He has had backing, Man Utd have spent £600m since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, they have invested in that team. He has a good squad of players and they should be able to get through these difficult moments.

Credit: Skysports.com