Would Jose Mourinho have worked as Alex Ferguson’s replacement?

Jose Mourinho has revealed had agreed to replace Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and had signed a contract at Old Trafford before deciding to rejoin Chelsea . In a new Netflix documentary about the Portuguese, Ferguson even reveals that Mourinho phoned him in tears , explaining that he couldn’t take charge of United in 2013. Mourinho would eventually join United in 2016, but his two-and-a-half year spell ended with the sack – while United have still not won the Premier League since Ferguson’s departure. But how different could the Premier League have been had Mourinho come to United three years earlier? The case for Mourinho? Force of personality to bring change By 2013, Mourinho’s defining moments as a manager – winning the Champions League at Porto, his transformational impact at Chelsea, lifting the Treble with Inter – were already behind him, but could he have extended his golden era at Manchester United if he replaced Ferguson? That summer, Mourinho was coming off a tumultuous, bruising tenure at Real Madrid, but it’s easy to forget what he initially achieved at the Bernabeu. In 2011/12, he led Madrid to a 100-point season in LaLiga, with his side scoring 121 goals in the process. With the right players, he could have arrived at Old Trafford a year later and brought the style of football to carry on from Ferguson’s final campaign, where an experienced squad won the title. Of course, Moyes was never going to be right fit at Manchester United – he was doomed from the start. But the most immediate improvement Mourinho would have brought had he arrived in 2013 was in United’s first post-Ferguson transfer window, a period of transition they had to nail but completely squandered. United were champions in 2011/12 but this was still a squad built around Ferguson veterans and it desperately needed a refresh: they had an agreement with midfielder Thiago Alcantara, only to renege on that deal, before Moyes spent the summer desperately trying to sign Cesc Fabregas. The transfer window shut with United making a late scramble to sign Moyes favourite Marouane Fellaini from his old club Everton. Moyes - dubbed the ‘Chosen One’ - was never the right man to replace Ferguson (Getty) Maybe Mourinho accepts the gift of Thiago and also convinces Fabregas to leave Barcelona a year early – he did, after all, bring the former Arsenal captain to Chelsea in 2014. Suddenly, United have the best midfield in the Premier League. Could Mourinho have got another top season out of Robin van Persie? Mourinho never got the best out of Wayne Rooney in their only season together from 2016 as the United captain’s powers were diminishing – but Rooney still scored 17 Premier League goals during the doomed Moyes campaign and still would have been able to offer plenty to a title-contending side. Mourinho actually tried to sign Rooney after he took charge of Chelsea, so he wanted him. That’s season’s Premier League title was also winnable. A Manchester City team managed by Manuel Pellegrini and led by Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero and David Silva did so, but with 86 points, and only after a Liverpool side managed by Brendan Rodgers and Mourinho’s first-year Chelsea side rather blew their opportunities when leading the three-way title race. And then, if 2013-14 wasn’t United’s year under Mourinho, then 2014-15 absolutely could have been. With the Portuguese already at Old Trafford, Chelsea perhaps don’t also sign Diego Costa to add to Fabregas, or have a charismatic manager like Mourinho to lead their romp to the title, although they did have a star in Eden Hazard who by that point was the Premier League’s best player. Above all, though, the one thing United needed following the departure of the greatest manager of all time in Ferguson was the force of personality to step into a legend’s shoes and carry the club forward. Had United got some of those decisions right off the pitch, then Mourinho – given the blessing of Ferguson and with the twinkle still in his eye – could have quite easily galvanised United to win at least one more Premier League title in the three years before Pep Guardiola’s arrival at Manchester City, in 2016, signalled the start of another era. Mourinho won his third Premier League title with Chelsea in 2015, but could it have come with United instead? (Getty) The case against Mourinho? An inescapable cycle repeats itself The clear argument against Mourinho ever succeeding at Old Trafford is that he was never the right fit for Manchester United. At Porto, Chelsea and Inter, Mourinho could use his personality to bend those clubs into his image – but that was much harder to do at Real Madrid, despite a successful second season in the Spanish capital, and later at United. We have clear evidence, after all, that from 2016 to 2018 the Mourinho and United partnership never quite clicked; his prolonged, 895-day stay in the Lowry Hotel was rather symbolic of a disconnect between Mourinho and Manchester, not to mention between Mourinho and United’s history and tradition. Sir Bobby Charlton even said in 2012 that Mourinho “pontificates too much for my liking”. So, diving straight from Ferguson’s legendary reign into Mourinho might have been too much of a shock for everyone, perhaps a bit Brian Clough taking over from Don Revie at Leeds. When it comes to David Moyes, the sympathetic view is that anyone would have struggled to replace Ferguson – even Mourinho. Particularly if Mourinho had already started to lose some of his aura. Mourinho’s 2012-13 season at Real Madrid is often cited as the moment that modern football began to leave him behind. He lost the dressing room, starting a bitter feud with captain Iker Casillas that led to the club’s star players turning on him. Mourinho said Madrid’s stars were “spoiled” but they were also fed up with his confrontational style and tactics. With Madrid’s rivalry with Barcelona very much at its peak and emotions running high, Mourinho left the Bernabeu exhausted, seeing shadows in every corner. Mourinho’s first Real Madrid tenure hinted at what would follow (Getty) It was the also the cycle that defined the second-half of his career: demanding more upon his arrival, achieving some success in his second season, before a spectacular unravelling in the third. It happened at Real Madrid between 2010 and 2013, at Chelsea between 2013 and up to their extraordinary collapse as Premier League champions in 2015, which preceded his spell at Manchester United between 2016 and 2018. Those cycles then became shorter, with lower highs, in his subsequent positions at Tottenham, Roma and Fenerbahce. Even at United, despite winning the Carabao Cup and Europa League in his first season, Mourinho memorably said that finishing second in his second season in 2017-18 was “one of his best achievements”. Perhaps that was Mourinho speaking to the difficulties of managing Manchester United in the post-Ferguson era and where the club have also gone round in circles off the pitch ever since David Gill left along with Ferguson in 2013. It is a pattern that has also swept up every other manager to have taken charge of United since Ferguson stepped down. Perhaps the Portuguese may have inspired another Premier League title in either 2014 or 2015, but those two patterns would have caught up to both Mourinho and United eventually. What do you think? Does Mourinho win a title at Manchester United?