10 May 29, 2022The Sunday Times
Football
talents of Memphis Depay and
Anthony Martial, and with five victo-
ries in seven games United went top of
the Premier League. But momentum
stalled and the football grew stilted.
United would finish fifth, with their
lowest goals total (49) since 1989-90.
Once more Woodward was not
prepared to wait and began an
extended and not-so-secret courtship
of José Mourinho, who was out of
work. Woodward apparently read
eight books about Mourinho and
canvassed numerous “football peo-
ple”, becoming convinced that
although Mourinho did not necessa-
rily embody United’s precious four
criteria, he was a guaranteed winner.
Minutes after winning the 2016 FA
Cup at Wembley, news that Van Gaal
was about to be fired leaked out. Van
Gaal would later say United “put my
head in a noose and I was publicly led
to the gallows,” describing the man-
ner of his exit as “the biggest disap-
pointment of my career”.
The curiosity is that in the games
leading up to the final and in the
match itself, United had started win-
ning — and attacking fluently — again.
Van Gaal had alighted on a formula
that looked to have a future: a new,
young front three of Martial, Jesse
Lingard and Marcus Rashford, with
Rooney supplying from No 10. Hoek
believes that had Van Gaal stayed, this
unit would have only got better and
Depay, who was young and needed to
adjust to both England and stardom,
would have also come good. But
patience was lacking because United’s
hierarchy misunderstood the process
required to build success.
“It took Klopp four years to win at
Liverpool, and [Pep] Guardiola two
years to win at City — and that, take it
from me, is a miracle. It was only
possible because of full support from
the top. Knowledge. Football people
[in executive roles] who help make it
happen,” Hoek said. “That vision has
to come from the top — and is what we
needed with United.”
Was Van Gaal right to label their
former employer “a commercial
club”? “I understand what Louis
means. United is the biggest club in
the world and the commercial depart-
ment is probably the best. [But] now
we’re in 2022 and [in terms of success
on the pitch] see where it compares to
- Liverpool has been growing,
City has been growing and the
question is, have United grown? The
answer is no. Those are the facts that
you can see in front of your eyes.”
‘V
ery old fashioned. Very
bureaucratic. A big surprise.”
Within weeks of starting as
manager in the summer of2016, Mourinho had told friends the
challenge of bringing trophies to Old
→Continued from page 9
Viewers of the BBC
News channel were
surprised on Tuesday
morning when the
words “Manchester
United are rubbish”appeared on the ticker
at the bottom of
the screen.
A BBC presenter
explained that
someone was “writingrandom things” as
they learnt how to
operate the ticker.
“Fair and accurate
reporting,” tweeted
one wag, however.THE FINAL INSULT, COURTESY OF THE BBC
United were
lacklustre in
Europa League
final. Soon after,
Solskjaer got a
new contract
“You do one as well!” United later
claimed it was a “scheduled market-
ing post” by Pogba’s sponsors Adidas.
At this point in the season, United
had 26 points from their first 17
Premier League games, their worst
points haul in the top flight at this
stage since 1990-91. The hunt for a
new manager was on. Again.A
s Liverpool humbled United on
December 16, Ole Gunnar
Solskjaer and his son Elijah were
sitting at home in Kristiansund,
watching on television — just another
pair of long-suffering United fans.
Three days later Solskjaer was
sweeping back into Carrington,
bearing smiles and hugs and the
favourite Norwegian chocolates of the
training ground’s legendary recep-
tionist, Kath. Solskjaer had answered
a call to be caretaker manager. It
would only be until the end of the sea-
son, but this was his “dream job” and
he was going to spread good vibes.
“I never thought it was going to
happen,” he told The Sunday Times,
on his return. “I’m just going to enjoy
these five months and do the best I
can.” His objective was not only to
improve results but also “getting
players to express themselves. Suc-
cess for me is improving the team and
improving players. It’s about getting
the fans smiling.”
He thrashed Cardiff City and Hud-
dersfield Town in his first two games,
with Pogba — whom he had managed
as a young player in United’s reserve
team — especially uplifted. An interac-
tion the morning after the Hudders-
field victory stirred in Woodward anotion that he might have stumbled
on the golden formula. Woodward
walked into Solskjaer’s office to ask
how things were going. Fine, Sols-
kjaer replied, but here is what the
team might look like in three years.
Solskjaer turned over a flip chart,
on which were listed five or six of the
existing squad and three young play-
ers he hoped the club could recruit,
including Hannibal Mejbri, a Tunisian
sensation who was 15 at the time, and
who United would sign from Monaco.
Woodward was blown away.
When United continued to win,
leaving Solskjaer with 14 victories from
his first 17 games, the sense of momen-
tum became irresistible. Neville epito-
mised the giddiness of the ex-United
players working in the media when he
joked that Solskjaer deserved a statue
after knocking out Paris Saint-Ger-
main in Europe. Plans to recruit
Mauricio Pochettino were ditched.
Solskjaer was made permanent man-
ager, on a three-year contract.
He won only two of the season’s 12
remaining games, beginning a pattern
that would come to mark his tenure —
extended good runs mixed with
slumps. The priority of his first sum-
mer transfer window was defence,
and reinforcing United’s English core,
with a remarkable £125 million lav-
ished on Harry Maguire and Aaron
Wan-Bissaka. By the time of his first
anniversary in charge, United were
eighth, but he and Woodward were
certain that a “cultural reboot” was
taking place.
“We can see things moving in the
direction we want and it’s not just on
the pitch, it’s what’s happening with
the staff at Carrington as well. It’s the
mood. The want and need to do your
best for the club. The being part of the
family,” Solskjaer said.
The message was always a crucial
part of his management. Media
departments at other clubs noted how
United’s manager gave significantly
more press conferences and bespoke
briefings to journalists than his coun-
terparts. Partly, it was Solskjaer’s
unfailing courteousness and accom-
modating nature. Partly — for he was
always a shrewd individual — it was his
way of ensuring his giant, perpetually
scrutinised organisation spoke with
one voice. A Fergie imperative.
Solskjaer had a good 2020. In Janu-
ary he recruited Bruno Fernandes,
who transformed United in the sec-
ond half of the 2019-20 season, and a
strong performance after the Covid
shutdown yielded third place in the
Premier League, as well as FA Cup and
Europa League semi-finals. Despite a
sluggish start to 2020-21 (which
included a 6-1 loss at home to Totten-
ham), United surged up the Premier
League and were top going into the
last week of January of 2021.
For Solskjaer, that was as good as itSolskjaer got off to a fine start but
could not solve United’s problemsTrafford involved far more than
reinvigorating a squad in which too
many players had grown comfortable
with failing to win.
How do you explain one of foot-
ball’s richest clubs informing the man
they had hired to reclaim the Premier
League title that one of his key sign-
ings could not undergo out-of-hours
hydrotherapy in Carrington’s rehabil-
itation pool because no lifeguard was
available to oversee the session?
It was the same story when
Mourinho, working long days at
United’s training ground, wished to
use its gym after hours — not permit-
ted without proper supervision.
When he wanted to change his desk in
the manager’s office, or gift a signed
shirt to a guest, each and every
expense, no matter how petty, had to
be approved by the club’s hierarchy.
Welcome to a Glazer-run company.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the forward
that Mourinho signed to lead a dys-
functional dressing room by example,
was similarly shocked. “Everyone
thinks of United as a top club, one of
the most powerful, and seen from the
outside it looked that way to me,” he
wrote last year. “But once I was there I
found a small, closed mentality.”
Ibrahimovic cites United deducting
£1 from his salary for drinking hotel-
room fruit juice on first-team duty;
and being “asked to show my papers
just to get into the training ground”.
“I’d lower my window and say to the
person at the gate, ‘Listen my friend
I’ve been coming here every day for a
month. I’m the best player in the
world. If you still don’t recognise me,
you’re in the wrong job.’”
Ill-thought-out practice permeated
the club. The sports science depart-
ment would advise on fatigue levels
based on sleep questionnaires that
some players fabricated answers to.
GPS data was deployed to advise
footballers to go easy in training ses-
sions — without consulting the coach-
ing staff first. The medical depart-
ment was another point of conflict.
Overseeing all this was the Glazers’
inexperienced and over-confident
chief executive. Woodward’s
hesitancy over completing deals
meant United lost John Stones to
Manchester City and Renato Sanchesto Bayern before Mourinho’s first
season. The Portuguese had to
defuse the contractual bomb that
Woodward had created in granting
David de Gea an option to join Real in
that summer window.
In addition to Ibrahimovic, the
other big signing of the Mourinho era
was Paul Pogba, who re-joined the
club in the summer of 2016 from
Juventus for about £90 million. The
first season under the Portuguese
yielded the two most recent trophies
United have won: the League Cup and
Europa League. The next year United
were Premier League runners-up,
albeit 19 points behind City.
It was in 2018-19 that Mourinho’s
“third-season syndrome” — his mana-
gerial alchemy waning in year three of
his tenure, evidenced previously at
Chelsea (twice) and Real — appeared
to kick in. After missing out on key
transfer targets in the summer, two
defeats in the first three league games
— by Tottenham and away to Brighton
& Hove Albion — meant that his side
were playing catch-up with the lead-
ing teams. After a 1-1 draw with Wol-
verhampton Wanderers in September
2018, Pogba said that he wanted
United to be able to “attack, attack,
attack” at home, which led Mourinho
to say the France midfielder would no
longer be the club’s “second captain”.
Shaw was singled out more than
once for public criticism and the
player himself acknowledged this in
November 2018 as United struggled to
make it out of their Champions
League group stage. “You need a thick
skin to play under this manager,” he
said, though added: “But we need to
fight for this manager, the team and
the club. Everyone in the changing
room is a fighter and we want the best
for the team.”
There was little sign of that fight a
few weeks later when United suffered
a 3-1 defeat by Liverpool (the Anfield
club had 36 shots to United’s six, with
Pogba an unused substitute). The next
day Mourinho was out, a develop-
ment which led to a post saying,
“Caption this,” along with a picture of
Pogba with a knowing expression, on
the Frenchman’s Twitter account
before being deleted. The former
United captain Gary Neville replied:THE FERGIE FACTOR II
Last nine seasons under Sir Alex Ferguson (2004-05 - 2012-13) Past nine seasons (2013-14 - 2021-22)
PL position Points won Points off champions
2004-05 3rd 77
2005-06 2nd 83
2006-07 Champions 89
2007-08 Champions 87
2008-09 Champions 90
2009-10 2nd 85
2010-11 Champions 80
2011-12 2nd 89
2012-13 Champions 89
2013-14 7th 64
2014-15 4th 70
2015-16 5th 66
2016-17 6th 69
2017-18 2nd 81
2018-19 6th 66
2019-20 3rd 66
2020-21 2nd 74
2021-22 6th 58
PL position Points won Points off champions
-2 2
-17
-15
-24
-19
-32
-33
-12
-35
2nd on goal
difference^0-1
-8
-18
Average
points won
per season85.4
Average
points won
per season68.2