Jose Mourinho has revealed there are still players and staff at Manchester United whom he had warned the club more than seven years ago were never going to be successful at Old Trafford.
Anthony Martial, Luke Shaw, Marcus Rashford and Scott McTominay are the only survivors at United from the first team squad Mourinho inherited at the club in May 2016.
United refused Mourinho’s request to sell striker Martial in the summer of 2018 and the Portuguese was a vocal critic of left back Shaw during his two-and-a-half years in charge at Old Trafford.
Mourinho also questioned the “character” and “personality” of Rashford while at United although he was a fan of McTominay and handed the Scotland midfielder his debut for the club.
“There are still people in that club, and when I say people I mean some players but also some other people that are not players, that are still there when I told [United] after two months: with these people, you are never going to do it [be successful],” Mourinho told John Obi Mikel’s Obi One podcast. “And they are still there.”
What else did Mourinho Jose say about United…
The Portuguese won the League Cup and Europa League in his first season in 2016-17 at Old Trafford but was sacked after two-and-a-half years at the helm with United mired in toxicity.
Mourinho’s criticism echoes remarks made a few months ago by his now departed successor, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who claimed some United players believe they are better than they actually are.
“Some weren’t as good as their own perception of themselves,” Solskjaer had told The Athletic in September. “I won’t name names, but I was very disappointed when a couple turned down the chance to be captain.”
Erik ten Hag is encountering many of the difficulties Mourinho and Solskjaer, his two immediate predecessors as permanent manager, faced as he bids to stop United’s season from unravelling.
A hard-fought 0-0 draw away to Liverpool on Sunday eased some of the pressure after a torrid campaign to date in which United have crashed out of the Champions League and lost 12 of their 25 matches.
Mourinho – who claimed he was once accused of “bullying” after substituting an unnamed United player at half-time in a game – also appeared to take a thinly veiled swipe at the club’s former executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward.
The former Chelsea and Spurs manager had a difficult relationship with Woodward and seemed to imply he would have been better off working with Richard Arnold, who took over as chief executive in the wake of Woodward’s departure but who has now left the club himself.
“They still have a CEO who is an amazing person, who I would love to have had during my time there, that’s Richard
Arnold, who is probably now leaving,” Mourinho said.
“I had him as a commercial director, not a CEO, and I would love to have had him on my side in my time there, but the club wasn’t easy. I don’t have regrets because I gave everything.
“The Man United fans know I gave everything, they know how much I love the club. I went there once with Sky, I was in the box giving my comments and the whole stadium turned to me applauding and singing for me.”
Mourinho on his time at Tottenham
Jose Mourinho has taken a swipe at former club Tottenham for the “ridiculous” decision to sack him less than a week before the Carabao Cup final against Manchester City three seasons ago.
Tottenham dismissed Mourinho after 17 months in charge just six days before the final in April 2021, which they lost 1-0.
Mourinho said the timing of his sacking by Tottenham remained the most unfathomable of all decisions he encountered while employed at a Premier League club.
“The most ridiculous one was a club that has an empty trophy room sacks me two days before a final,” he said. “That was the one that was… come on!
“Tottenham have never won for 50 years. I don’t remember when. I am two days before a final and I couldn’t do the final. It’s the one which doesn’t smell well.
“I had a plan but sometimes it doesn’t work. But the reality is every time I went to Wembley with Chelsea I won. I went there with Man United three times, I won twice.
“So the record was good. It was a stadium and atmosphere which I dominate well, because when you go into these big matches you need to feel comfortable, you cannot go to these matches and feel the stadium is too big.”
Mourinho, who chose not to acknowledge the club’s 2008 League Cup final victory, does not insist Tottenham would have beaten City had they stuck with him but believes they could have overcome Pep Guardiola’s side having beaten them 2-0 the previous November.
“I had the experience to try and help the team but the final was against Man City so I would be an idiot right now to say we would have won.
“But a few weeks [five months] before that, we won against them 2-0 at our stadium, so the feeling was positive. But it is what it is.”
Mourinho on his time at Chelsea
Mourinho says he did not want either Kevin De Bruyne or Mohamed Salah to leave Stamford Bridge but that they “were just kids who couldn’t wait” for opportunities.
De Bruyne left Chelsea for Wolfsburg in 2014 and 18 months later joined Manchester City for £55 million and went on to win five Premier League titles and the European Cup with the club. Salah joined Roma from Chelsea in 2016 after loan spells there and at Fiorentina before returning to England with Liverpool a year later and went on to win the Champions League and Premier League with the Merseyside club.
Both players have established themselves as two of the greats of the modern Premier League era but Mourinho harbours no regrets over the situations that saw them leave Chelsea.
“To be honest, they left because they wanted to leave,” he said. “They left because they didn’t want to wait. History proves that their option was good because they’ve had the careers they have and reached a high standard, but sometimes kids make decisions like that because they can’t wait, or they don’t have the patience to be calm and to wait for the right moment. Sometimes their career goes in the wrong direction.”
Of Salah, Mourinho said: “When people say I let Salah go, I say exactly the opposite. I bought Salah. I was the one who said buy that guy. He was going from Basel to Liverpool, and I made a fight, I made a war, to make him come to Chelsea.
“Then comes the part when, to be a Chelsea player, you have to perform, or you need to wait. He didn’t want to wait, he wanted to go on loan. And then Chelsea, at a certain point, decided to sell. He went to Fiorentina and Roma, and that was not me deciding to sell. I was saying let him go on loan if he feels he needs to play every minute of every game.”
Mourinho said he wanted to keep De Bruyne but that the player was determined to go.
“I told the club no, I don’t want him out on loan, I want him with me,” he said. “He stayed with me, and he began the Premier League season playing in the starting XI.
“After that, we played the European Super Cup in Prague against Bayern and he didn’t play that game. Then, the next day, he wants to leave.
“We played the second Premier League game of the season against Manchester United at Old Trafford and we drew 0-0. He was on the bench and he played some minutes, but it wasn’t enough for him, so he wanted to leave.
“When you are at Chelsea and you want to leave, go and another one comes. They were just kids who couldn’t wait, and their careers say they were right, but it wasn’t down to me. Probably other guys will say I pushed them out, but not them.”
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