Former Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho reveals he didn’t get the same level of support at the club that Erik ten Hag is getting due his struggles with Ed Woodward in a professional capacity.
Mourinho, who is currently out of work, spent two-and-a-half years in charge of United between July 2016 and December 2018. He was replaced at Old Trafford by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, with Ralf Rangnick and Ten Hag the others to have taken the job since Mourinho’s dismissal.
There has been uncertainty over the future of Ten Hag for the last few months and that continues to be the case, despite the Dutchman leading United to three cup finals in two seasons – winning the Carabao Cup last season, which ended a miserable run of no trophies in six years.
With Mourinho unemployed and trying to stay relevant, the former United boss has opened up on his relationship with the club. He feels that Ten Hag is being treated differently.
“My relationship with Ed Woodward was good,” Mourinho said in an interview with The Telegraph. “Good as in the personal point of view. Even now we sent an SMS. But from a professional point of view it was not the best.
“I am who I am. I am a football man. Ed comes from a different background and what Ten Hag has in his time at Manchester United I didn’t have. I didn’t have that level of support. I didn’t have that level of trust.
“So I left sad, because I felt I was in the beginning of the process. In some moments, I felt if they trusted me and believed in my experience things could be different.”
People shouldn’t forget that Mourinho left a toxic environment behind him at United. It was something Solskjaer could only address in the short-term, but the same players who threw the towel in under Mourinho did it to Solskjaer as well – just like Roy Keane famously warned they would.
Mourinho did lead United to a second-placed finish in his second season in charge of the club, but got sacked six months later after a poor start to the next campaign.
The point (I think) Mourinho is making stems from the fact Woodward hasn’t been at the club since Ten Hag’s arrival. That said, we shouldn’t pretend that he’s had a proper structure around him because that hasn’t been the case.
I don’t think too many United fans would have Mourinho back at the club.
Only time will tell if Ten Hag will get the support he needs at United. His job is currently on the line but the Reds have an FA Cup final to look forward to in May.
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