JOSE MOURINHO PERISHING IN HIS OWN TOXIC ATMOSPHERE

We know what Jose Mourinho is and we know how he works. Once inside a club, he heads straight for the thermostat, dialling up the heat until everyone in the room is uncomfortable. The aim is to breed loyalty, to create an environment which he dominates and where his message is never questioned. He controls the thermostat, therefore he must be obeyed.

The mechanism, like Mourinho himself, looks dated. The failure of Manchester United’s players to respond to their head-coach is telling. It suggests that his methods are now too clichéd to be taken seriously and his threats sufficiently empty to carry proper weight. Over the summer, Anthony Martial openly defied the Portuguese. Currently, Paul Pogba is doing much the same and, if reports are to be believed, Alexis Sanchez is threatening a mighty sulk following his omission on Saturday.

Three cases doesn’t constitute a rebellion, but there’s clearly an appetite for mutiny in the Carrington air. Whereas the cornerstones of Mourinho’s first Chelsea team evidently saw him as someone to be followed and never questioned, these current United players aren’t nearly as submissive. Just as his second spell at Stamford Bridge ended with the sound of whispered conversations behind the Cobham bike sheds, his time at Old Trafford looks to be fatally undermined in much the same way.

West Ham was a catastrophe. Manuel Pellegrini is managing an improving side, but one which is still thoroughly mediocre. They may have played well at London Stadium, building on a strong performance against Chelsea, but it was striking just how comfortable they looked. Once they led in that game, there was never a suggestion that they might lose. Even when Marcus Rashford pulled a goal back, a moment which certainly sent a ripple of doubt through the home support, United had barely touched the ball before – again – they found themselves two goals behind.

Mourinho played all of his cards at the weekend, before and during the game. Sanchez was dropped to make a point. Scott McTominay was included for further antagonism. And, because he couldn’t resist the powerful aesthetic, he substituted Pogba with twenty minutes to play and two goals to find. No player is above being removed and the midfielder was certainly poor, but it was still a classic Mourinho moment: Nemanja Matic, McTominay and Fellaini all remained on the field, Pogba – his culture, his creativity, his theoretical goal-threat – was withdrawn.

It made some tactical sense but, on past evidence, the force driving the change was most likely Mourinho’s desire for certain optics. He knew the television cameras would follow his star player to the bench and would capture his obvious bafflement. He knew that and he needed it, he wanted a big headline with a deep, dark shadow to cast over the result. `

It didn’t work and, actually, that 3-1 defeat fully aptured the impotence of contemporary Mourinhoism. In fact, last week as an entirety was vivid: the failure to beat Wolves, the loss to Derby, and then – as its crescendo – the abject hopelessness in Stratford. Within those seven days lay all sorts of little controversies and decisions, some manufactured, some not, and yet none of them shifted Manchester United’s needle in any meaningful way.

The question now will be whether Mourinho should keep his job. Noises out of the club suggest that he will and, with few alternatives available, that might be the only rational decision. However, the broader curiosity is in wandering when, if ever, Mourinho’s stylistic update will occur. At what point does he ditch the abrasiveness and the mood manipulation and settle on a different way of delivering his message?

A common refrain at the moment is that the game has passed him by. That, while he remains in thrall to functionality, the world around him is enamoured to counter-pressing, speed, and juego de posicion. That may not be an accusation without merit, but – arguably – the deeper contrast is in personality. Authoritarianism is scarcely found at football’s summit now. For the most part, it has been replaced by something softer. The approach employed by coaches like Guardiola, Klopp and Pochettino, for instance, all vary to a degree, but all involve different mixes of charisma, innovation and a more chummy sort of leadership. It’s not quite Brentian – these aren’t friends first, bosses second – but there is an element of that. The intensity has been ratcheted up, but the humanity has kept pace too.

Of course, the public aren’t privy to what happens on the training ground, but we are aware of certain fragments. We know that Harry Kane is extremely close to Pochettino and that Raheem Sterling and John Stones each enjoy the full loyalty of Guardiola. Perhaps those aren’t friendships, but there’s certainly a big brother or paternal element at work. Conversely, it’s extremely difficult to imagine Mourinho fostering something similar. In the past, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, and John Terry would all have followed him into any battle of his choosing, but those days are long in the past and there is little suggestion that he enjoys that kind of closeness with anyone currently.

Arsene Wenger once spoke about the changes he saw in players throughout his career: he believed that their financial security and the inflation of their wages had altered the coach-squad dynamic forever. The literal hierarchy remains as it was within a club, but the method of controlling footballers has changed. Contemporary players – in Wenger’s words – have to be “persuaded” to do things, not simply ordered to.

When he made those remarks, Wenger was actually referring to the French national squad in 2010 and the chaos of their World Cup. An extreme example, then, but still a pertinent one – and relevant to Mourinho because by no measure is he a persuader.

In that vein, it’s revealing that much of the resistance he’s faced in recent years has been from high-profile players on very high wages. The Pedro Leon incident at Real Madrid and the Luke Shaw saga at United provide examples of something different, but Paul Pogba is just the latest elite player with whom he’s had considerable difficulty – a list which includes Iker Casillas, Marcelo, Mesut Ozil, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Kaka.

Whereas the old theory determined that Mourinho would target these players to manufacture authority, the truth is likely that, while still selective to a degree, those were instances in which players refused to react positively to his management style. Casillas, for instance, was reportedly disinterested in Mourinho’s media subterfuge and was unwilling to chorus along with his manager’s script. Targeting a sacred cow of the Real Madrid dressing-room can be spun to having been in Mourinho’s interests but, more realistically, that was a case of a modern, secure and extremely affluent professional rejecting an enforced doctrine.

The Paul Pogba situation is slightly different. What their relationship truly is continues to evade us, but the theoretical issues are clear enough: Mourinho is a transient figure at the club with a less than perfect relationship with the supporters. Pogba, by contrast, is an academy product and also – uniquely – now a record signing. His wages are higher than Mourinho’s, his commercial and literal worth to the Manchester United are each far greater.

It’s the perfect manifestation of Wenger’s theory: a player of such profile is never going to be ordered to do anything, he is not likely to fall under anyone’s “spell”. Instead, he must be persuaded at all times that what he’s being asked to do is for his betterment. It stands to reason, also, that attempting to make an example of him – by leaving him out or criticising him publicly – no longer has the kind of effect that it once did. At Chelsea, that spine of bewitched players needed Mourinho to deliver them the kind of success they had never experienced before. At United though, he is trying to strong arm not only of the wealthiest players in the game, but also someone who has played in a Champions League final, has won Serie A four times, and is also currently a world champion. Clearly, it’s different – as it was with Casillas, Ozil, and perhaps might yet be with Sanchez too.

The tragedy for Mourinho is that his aptitude for the game remains the same. The most rational conclusion from this part of his career is not that he has lost the capacity to win football matches, but that his instructions for doing so are perishing within the toxic air he creates. Ironically, it is the atmosphere which once helped him to achieved beyond his means which is now making him fail within them – and Manchester United’s performances seem to confirm that. West Ham’s third goal on Saturday, created by a simple passage of play through the middle of the field, was startling. It was not only absurdly soft, but also the sort which a Mourinho-coached team would never even concede in training. It was, to this point, the most vidid symbol of the disconnect and the resulting dysfunction.

So this is a man who needs a reinvention: a break from the game during which he stands back and takes time to look in on himself. Where there have been great managers in history, there is nearly always a point at which their control and influence begins to subside. Sir Alex Ferguson managed to survive that inevitability with tactical and philosophical pivots, Arsene Wenger did not. Jose Mourinho, who rightfully belongs alongside them on the Premier League’s Rushmore monument, must change his face if he is to remain relevant.