A sixth-place finish in the Premier League probably wasn’t what Jose Mourinho wanted from his first season as Manchester United manager. However, their league finish didn’t quite sum up what Mourinho achieved over the 2016/17 campaign. Charged with instilling a winning mentality and qualifying for the Champions League, Mourinho succeeded, albeit by a technicality, by lifting the League Cup and the Europa League.
That should have given him a platform to build upon, with Manchester United expected to challenge for the Premier League title this season. Ultimately, they finished a massive 19 points behind Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side, but that didn’t provide the starkest illustration of where Manchester United are at the moment. That came on Saturday.
Mourinho insisted that his team had been the better side in the FA Cup final at the weekend, pointing to the possession stats after full time, but they didn’t quite tell the full story of Manchester United’s defeat to Chelsea. At no point did a breakthrough look imminent for the Old Trafford side. For all the attacking talent in red on the pitch, Chelsea were comfortable in defending their 1-0 lead for 68 minutes all the way up to the final whistle.
Two years into Mourinho’s tenure, Manchester United should be close to the finished product, taking into account that many saw this to be a three-year project for the Portuguese coach. But now the Old Trafford outfit look to be back to square one. They might have finished second in the Premier League this season, but no real progress has been made over the past year.
At least Mourinho looked to have instilled some sort of a winning mentality at Manchester United last season, leading his team through the knockout rounds of both the League Cup and the Europa League. But this season, they have fallen to Sevilla in the last 16 of the Champions League, going down with a whimper to Chelsea in Saturday’s FA Cup final.
For the second time in two years, Mourinho must rebuild his squad this summer, with Manchester United reportedly set to splurge around £200 million on new signings in the transfer market before the start of the new season. This is surely a concern for those in charge at Old Trafford considering how Mourinho has already wasted so much money on players who have failed to live up to their billing - look at Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Alexis Sanchez and Victor Lindelof.
The appointment of Mourinho was seen, at the time, as a response to the hiring of Guardiola at the Etihad Stadium across the city, but so far the Portuguese has failed to keep pace with his great adversary. The gap has really opened up between the two over the past 12 months and there’s no sign of it closing.
