Mourinho is up there with our best ever managers, he elevated our club to a place we'd never been before, he instilled a belief in the team that no manager past or present has ever been able to replicate and he has remained in our hearts.
However, this all comes at a cost. As much as I love Jose, he is a cancer which our club has only recently managed to eradicate.
I believe that AVB was our first manager which allowed us to wash away the last traces of Mourinho, due to him being told to totally revamp the squad and move away from our old brand of football to a newer "sexier" brand (sure we played this under Carlo but he was still expected to challenge on all fronts and sacrifices had to be made) which Roman has always wanted.
I firmly believe AVBs main goals preseason were a top four finish, last sixteen of CL, a good cup run and promotion of youngsters. As we all know AVB went on an abysmal run and if it weren't for the tactically inept Rafa he'd be known as our worst manager since big Phil.
If we look at Jose's record it's clear to see that he never goes to clubs to be in it for the long haul. He comes in, instills a belief, sweeps away nearly everything in front of him and makes the board and fans happy.
This all sounds good but when its time to leave the club are always inevitably in turmoil. It took us the best part of two/three seasons before we started to move on.
I don't know enough about Porto to comment on them, I think they won the league for a few more seasons afterwards but at Inter Milan he left them when they were heading into a steep decline. You can blame Rafa all you want for this but the seeds were already sown, regardless of whether they won the treble and now it looks like Real are about to implode.
Jose is a bit like your first girlfriend, even years after the split you'll think back to them fondly and remember the good old days. Everything was great, then it went Pete Tong and now you think back full of melancholy.
Can we really afford to bring back Mourinho? Sure he'll steady the ship but inevitably when he leaves, which he will, we'll be back to square one and we'll end up repeating this sorry state of affairs all over again.
Jose Mourinho is a cancer
posted on 5/2/13
Mourinho is one of our greats. He will always be remembered fondly....unless he comes back and fails. Why risk that? Why can we not move on? There is always the next great manager out there. We need to find and give that person a chance. Just like our players as well. We make hasty decisions to want rid of a player after about 3-4 months with us. We have so much potential in our team people need to relax and give these players, whom have seen about 54 managers since they've signed, a chance to grow with our team.
The grass isnt always greener...
posted on 5/2/13
@Superb - Certainly. These are just a few off the top of my head, some currently unemployed, some had a slight blip at their last job and some are total outsiders.
I don't expect everyone to agree with me but here they are in no particular order.
- Joachim Low
- Diego Simeone
- Jurgen Klopp
- Manuel Pellegrini
- Slaven Bilic
- Unai Emery
- Bert Van Marwijk
posted on 5/2/13
Micahel Woods?
Our team back then was full class players, so it's no surprise those players didn't make it through. I'm sure if he had someone special like Neymar in the u18's team he would have made it. But players like Wilshere, if he was trying to break into our team during those years.......well I think he would have failed.
posted on 5/2/13
@Superb - The boy in question is Michael Woods, who we "tapped up" from Leeds along with Tom Taiwo.
posted on 5/2/13
Yeah cheers lads. Michael Woods it is.
What happened to him ?
The last time I saw him was at Griffin Park in 2009 for the reserves when he limped off the field after getting injured.
posted on 5/2/13
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posted on 5/2/13
- Joachim Low
- Diego Simeone
- Jurgen Klopp
- Manuel Pellegrini
- Slaven Bilic
- Unai Emery
- Bert Van Marwijk
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None of those names are as good as Mourinho.
Klopp interests me the most out of that bunch but he doesnt speak English which is a major problem as we experienced with Scolari.
Joachim Low doesn´t have any club level experience so would be a major risk.
Simeone is a novice manager as well and not sure if he speaks English either.
posted on 5/2/13
I don't know the answer, but the young players Mourinho gave games to, were they starts against a top half side or subs appearances when a few goals up and not long left. To be fair I do remember Lassana Diarra having a good game v Arsenal in the Carling Cup final before he fell out with Mourinho and later Wenger.
posted on 5/2/13
Interesting article.
You can't take anything away from the man because he has achieved everything there is to achieve in the European domestic game, but I still don't consider him a great manager. I've always thought of him a a management consultant. He goes to a club, motivates them, makes them feel special, gets the best out of them but doesn't really do anything to the structure of the club. He doesn't devleop youth, he doen't plan for the long term, mainly because he knows he's not going to be there for the long run.
He needs to settle at a club and build it himself. Obviously he'll get jobs at the best clubs which also have the most money, so I'm not saying he go somewhere like Bolton, but I would like to see him stick it out a team, built a team, re-build if necessary and also develop the academies, bring through players, without spending the massive amounts of money he has spent at every club he's been too.
posted on 6/2/13
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