Manchester United Fan View: History suggests Jose Mourinho won’t win the league with United

Just imagine that Manchester United were never managed by Sir Alex Ferguson. I know, I know. It’s a scary thought.

But if you will indulge me for just one moment then Manchester United’s record haul of 20 English titles will have suddenly been reduced to 7. Then, if you take Sir Matt Busby’s tenure out of the equation, too, United would have just two titles to their name. If you stricken the lesser known Ernest Magnull out of history then United would be down to zero.

This is all just a roundabout way of saying that all Manchester United’s domestic successes have come from just three managers. That’s a staggering statistic when you compare the same numbers from the other truly top tier clubs in Europe.

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Real Madrid have won La Liga under 17 different managers. Bayern Munich have claimed the Bundesliga under 15. Ernesto Valverde will become the 14th to win the title for Barcelona, the same amount of managers that have taken Juventus to the Serie A.

Even in England, Liverpool and Arsenal have won the league under 8 different managers, Pep Guardiola will become the fifth to win it with Manchester City, Antonio Conte was the fourth to win it with Chelsea, while even Sunderland previously won the title with four different managers. Everton won it with three different set of managers, which included 5 titles before the Second World War that were overseen by a committee.

It is bizarre how stats like this come together. The more cynically inclined of you will insist that there is little to be gleaned from them. But, on the other hand, the fact that this pattern has emerged over 130 years worth of football means that there must be something to learn.

So how have Manchester United only won the league title with just three managers? Does that diminish their reputation? Or enhance it? I would suggest the latter, as it highlights how deep the family element runs at Old Trafford, and the momentum that can be gathered when it is used just right.

Unfortunately my knowledge of Ernest Magnull’s assumably magnificent Manchester United side is limited. But every self-respecting Manchester United fan knows that Sir Matt Busy’s faith, trust and honing of youth still vibrates through the club today. So much so that the last time United named a squad without a youth team member was October 30, 1937.

With his monikered Babes Busby won two consecutive titles. It invariably would have been more if most of their lives hadn’t been cut short in the Munich Air Disaster. But from those ashes Busby built a new side that won two titles in the mid 1960s, while Sir Alex Ferguson’s 13 Premier League triumphs were also achieved with a combination of youth and attacking football that became hardened and more intent on winning as they continually succeeded.

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Not all of the football was in that vein, of course. But there were enough of those moments to make the glasses of Manchester United fans particularly rose-tinted.

The fact that only three managers have won the league with Manchester United suggests that once you crack the winning formula at Old Trafford the atmosphere and spirit at the club emboldens it and creates a momentum that is so impossible to quash it can define an entire footballing generation.

Back to the present, though. Because that is clearly not the atmosphere that Mourinho has created in the wake of the defeat to Sevilla, as he struggles to get the best out of his flair players like Paul Pogba, Alexis Sanchez and Anthony Martial and reverts to type.

Sure he has helped to smooth out the horrifically imbalanced squad he inherited, United have undoubtedly progressed under him, and the constant criticism that comes his ways is overblown and ill-thought.

But, after making his first flirty signs to Paris Saint Germain earlier this season, Mourinho is now on the defensive, while Guardiola’s City go from strength to strength and could sew up the title a month before the season ends against Jose’s United on April 7.

Currently, it is hard to imagine that Mourinho will be the fourth Manchester United manager to claim an English title. But, if he doesn’t, he might have laid the perfect groundwork for his successor to be.