He’s been called a “coward” and an “enemy of football.” Of course, Jose Mourinho is well-used to these sort of slights. After all, the Portuguese has forged an entire career from being an antagonist. He’s got under the skin of pretty much every manager and team he’s ever faced. But even by such standards, the reaction to his https://www.thesportsman.com/football/teams/manchester-unitedManchester United side’s display at Anfield on Saturday has been astonishing.
Indeed, what Mourinho did against Liverpool sat uncomfortably with many. While the Portuguese denied allegations amounting to as much afterwards, he essentially played for a point, setting up his side in a defensive formation. They invited pressure on top of themselves, deliberately leaving Romelu Lukaku as an isolated frontman.
But for all that Mourinho’s game plan might have gone against the grain of Manchester United’s identity as a club, it worked. Mourinho got what he came for, leaving Anfield with his side’s unbeaten start to the season still in tact. There is no reasoning with some critics, though. This, as they see it, was an embarrassment.
Jurgen Klopp himself weighed in, claiming that he would never get away with implementing such tactics as Liverpool manager. This, along with everything else angled at Mourinho this week, says a lot about the English game. Why were so many surprised at the Manchester United’s tactics on Saturday? He’s suffocated games in the pursuit of pure results countless times before. This was no different.
Mourinho is the antithesis of English football’s tactical naivety. The likes of Pep Guardiola, Antonio Conte and Mauricio Pochettino have raised the stakes at the top of the Premier League, with the elite clubs coached by a contingent of men who can hold their own against anyone on a tactical blackboard.
But generally speaking, the English game is tactically inept. That has been exposed by the national team’s performances at major tournaments over the past two decades, as well as the decline of the Premier League’s elite at Champions League level. English football values the style of a performance over its effectiveness. That’s why there has been such a strong reaction to Mourinho’s tactics against Liverpool.
There is a genuine debate to be had about Mourinho’s record in away games against top six opposition over the past two years, but any derision of his game plan at Anfield on Saturday is self-righteous grandstanding. An embodiment of where English football has gone wrong in recent times. Mourinho knows how to get results, how to win trophies. Is that something the English game can claim in its modern character as a footballing nation?
Title races are defined by results gained in difficult games, against difficult opponents, at difficult venues. United, minus a number of key players through injury, got one against Liverpool at Anfield and it could prove to be priceless in the race against Manchester City at the top of the Premier League. Will Mourinho care if Manchester United have silverware to show for their efforts come May? Will anyone even remember how his team played against Liverpool early on in the season?
This isn’t to say that English sides should necessarily embrace Mourinho’s philosophy, but the way he was able to shift his Manchester United team from their freescoring form of recent weeks to a compact, conservative version of themselves on Saturday should be commended, not derided.
English football should be learning from Mourinho, but instead so many seem intent on belittling him. It takes a certain sort of arrogance to do that to a manager who has won so much with so many different teams, but that’s a hallmark of the Premier League and it’s been on show this week.
