Is Mourinho on the way out? Jose Mourinho
Jose Mourinho

Jose Mourinho

MANCHESTER. — Manchester United are in talks with Jose Mourinho regarding a contract extension, Sky Sports News understands. Mourinho is currently midway through the three-year contract he signed when succeeding Louis van Gaal in May 2016. It is believed talks between Mourinho’s agent, Jorge Mendes, and United began in October.

United are currently second in the English Premier League, 15 points behind leaders Manchester City, and have progressed through to the last 16 of the Champions League, where they will face Sevilla.

Mourinho has admitted United are finding it difficult to compete with City and Paris Saint-Germain in the transfer market and suggested his squad requires massive investment to enable them to compete with Europe’s elite clubs.

In October, he spoke glowingly about what is taking at PSG, who shattered the world transfer record last summer to sign Neymar from Barcelona for £198m and followed that up by agreeing a deal with Monaco for Kylian Mbappe worth £166m.“At the moment in Paris there is something special. Magic, quality, youth – it’s fantastic,” Mourinho said.

In the same interview with French television, Mourinho expressed a “desire to do new things” and said he does not intend to finish his career at United. But there is growing concern inside Old Trafford that Mourinho will not be the manager of Manchester United next season.

Indeed, there is a sense that things are beginning to unravel in an all too familiar fashion, with insiders worried that it will conclude with Mourinho resigning at the end of the current campaign. As one observer remarked on Wednesday: “Jose seems to be having third-season syndrome a year early with us.”

Staff at United regard him as an increasingly detached figure, withdrawing more into the inner sanctum of his own coaching team and spending even less time than usual in Manchester.

Home, as he said recently in one interview, is in London and Mourinho has made no secret of his decision to stay in a hotel when he is in the North West. And while it would be ridiculous to question the commitment of a manager renowned for his work ethic and his attention to detail, the frequency with which he returns to the family home is causing some alarm.

Mourinho is a regular train traveller but is also understood to sometimes use different forms of air travel for his commute to work. It is believed he used a private jet on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, having given his players an extended Christmas break by training on the morning of the 24th and the evening of the 25th.

Club officials say they are not aware of a jet being hired, which would suggest Mourinho paid for it personally if that was indeed the case. But the sheer number of journeys south is troubling for some when insiders question why his wife, Matilde, cannot move to Manchester now that their children are no longer living at home.

If results were better and Manchester City were not proving quite so dominant at the summit of the Premier League, Mourinho’s domestic arrangements would not be such an issue. But when life in the shadow of Pep Guardiola looks so uncomfortable for the former Chelsea boss, it starts to be regarded as a symptom of a wider problem.

Mourinho does represent an improvement on Louis van Gaal but the Dutchman is credited, at least, with committing to life in Manchester. He and his wife made a home for themselves in Cheshire, often dining out in nearby restaurants and even joining the local tennis club. For the residents of Bowdon and Hale, the Van Gaals were a regular sight, sometimes when enjoying an evening stroll together.

By contrast, Mourinho is something of a recluse, and far more likely to be spotted by commuters on the platforms at either Stockport or London Euston. The issues, of course, go way beyond Mourinho’s living arrangements. The fight he seems to be picking over the purchase of new personnel, the club can almost accept.

There is certainly a willingness to recognise that Mourinho is entitled to disagree with the choices of his more immediate predecessors, namely David Moyes and Van Gaal, when it comes to players. Just as the club would recognise that Mourinho has more than played his part in getting the club back at the top table in the transfer market.

But as reported by Sportsmail on Wednesday, it has been noted that he has criticised United’s spending with comments that appear to be aimed directly at the board. Other battles are also harder to justify, and seem utterly self-defeating. The decision to publicly attack Paul Scholes was a curious one when the former United player was far from alone among the pundits in identifying problems within Mourinho’s team.

But rather than respond to a former Liverpool or a former Arsenal player, and in doing so garner the support of the United fans, Mourinho went for a hugely popular figure in Scholes. He got it particularly wrong when he seemed to suggest that Scholes’s criticism of Paul Pogba was in some way fuelled by resentment over the salary the French midfielder commands.

Scholes was not just an outstanding player. He was someone to whom money did not actually matter that much. Sure, he knew his value to United and today he is an extremely wealthy man. — Sky Sports. —Mailonline.

 

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