Mourinho should quit if he can't rediscover his passion

Adrian Mutu has claimed that Manchester United striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic is not injured, but has been excommunicated by manager Jose Mourinho after a clash of personalities. There is absolutely no reason to believe this.

Mutu, after all, holds a grudge against Mourinho after he was sacked by Chelsea following a positive test for cocaine. Secondly, there is nothing that indicates that Mutu has any friends or contacts at Old Trafford.

He has no international colleagues there, nor is he even of the same generation of players. However, Mourinho and some of his squad are clearly at odds, and it is holding the side back.

The most obvious problem is between Mourinho and Paul Pogba. Before his injury this season, he had appeared to be the midfielder that United needed. He could link midfield with the forwards and the wide players, and drive the team forward through the middle of the pitch.

On the left at Everton, he demonstrated how effective he can be in supposedly his favourite position. Now, the quality of most teams in the Premier League is diabolical, but he was dangerously superior to almost anyone he came up against.

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His return has seen inconsistent appearances, dropping in and out of the first team. When on the pitch he has appeared to have absolutely no interest in the game. He has, at times, looked deliberately ineffective.

The other option is that Pogba has lost motivation purely because of tactical reasons. Pogba returned to a more conservative – possibly cowardly – United side, and his talents have been blunted as he and Nemanja Matic have been separated from his side’s front four.

Pogba isn’t the only player to be struggling for form. Anthony Martial has been repeatedly linked with a move away, most recently to Juventus. At just 22, he clearly has the talent to be a special player for the next decade but too often he allows games to pass him by if he’s roughed up, or maybe when he simply doesn’t fancy it.

People claim that he has poor body language, but he carries himself in the same manner when he is in excellent form, too. Nevertheless, Mourinho came to United claiming that he was in fact a manager perfectly suited to bringing on young players – there has been no obvious success where this is concerned.

On the same wing, Martial’s competitor Marcus Rashford has found himself close to frozen out. He found starts hard to come by in 2018, and was on the naughty step of the bench for some time. Why exactly is unclear, but it may be because of a series of wasteful appearances as United’s form slumped in winter.

He returned to score an excellent goal against Liverpool as part of a brace, but unless he maintains that level of performance, it is fair to assume that Mourinho has managed to knock his own players off course.

It was hoped that Alexis Sanchez would reinvigorate United’s attack. Instead he has looked as disoriented as the rest. That should be fixed with time, almost certainly for the start of the next season, but looking at United’s decline in attack this season, nothing is guaranteed.

The reason for the decline seems to be that Mourinho has changed his attack as he has changed his behaviour. The sarcastic and snarky responses remain in the press conferences, but the outwardly bullish nature on the sidelines has faded away. He says it is a matter of maturing and no longer acting the clown, but some assume that it is that he is not the manager he once was. Looking at his first Chelsea side, there is evidence to support that view.

The side were defensively excellent, but more than that they were physically rugged and happily cynical. Ricardo Carvalho’s elbows were as important as his feet. But they weren’t defensive per se, and used Arjen Robben and Damien Duff to put teams on the back foot.

They had Frank Lampard providing goals and pressure from outside the box, and Didier Drogba became a brilliant centre forward. The team had arrogance and self-belief, and United currently have neither.

Perhaps this is natural, given the emergence of a new type of player, less happy to embrace a tempestuous attitude to the football. City’s players, after all, are magic under Pep Guardiola but were largely guff under Manuel Pellegrini.

The players who did well for Alex Ferguson fell apart under David Moyes. Maybe Mourinho has decided that taking opponents and colleagues by the scruff of the neck simply isn’t worth the hassle, or especially effective these days.

Unless anything disastrous happens, Mourinho is going to stay. He has a new contract, he is in second place, and United continue to sell out their ground and make a fortune. Ed Woodward and the Glazers will be perfectly happy with that. But whether he will keep his job is different from whether he should. Unless he can relocate some of his old aggression and verve, it might be time that he considers moving on.