4 Painful Parallels between Moyes and Mourinho

#2 Transfer market strategy

Ed Woodward

David Moyes managed to sign only four players for United during his first and last transfer window with the club - Guillermo Varela, Marouane Fellaini, Saidy Janko and Juan Mata. Out of these, Fellaini and Mata are the only surviving players at the club up until the Mourinho era. Except for Juan Mata, the other signings have been absolute disappointments.

Fellaini though has turned out to be a favourite of Van Gaal and Mourinho thereafter, with the managers admitting the Belgian midfielder’s vitality to the team. All this aside, Moyes was said to have targeted four key signings during the window – Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo, Toni Kroos and Cesc Fabregas.

Needless to say, the Scot failed to secure these signings. It is widely understood that apart from lack of rationality in these potential recruits, the players didn’t have much trust in the philosophy or style of Moyes.

Cut to the present-day scenario and what has changed? Mourinho has made quite a few signings since taking charge at United. Pogba, Lukaku, Fred, Matic, Mkhitaryan – Sanchez (Swap Deal), Bailly, Lindelof, Ibrahimovic, Dalot, Lee Grant all bought in for a cumulative 432 Million Euros approx.

Over two years, that number for the most valuable football club in the world doesn’t seem like a big amount. However, the ability of these players to perform at the club has been questioned far too often and with good reason.

Whilst this isn’t the case with a majority of Mourinho’s transfers, two key players – Pogba and Mkhitaryan, haven’t necessarily justified their reputation at United. While the former seems to be caged in the strategic yet conservative style of play under Mourinho, the latter fell out of favour with the United manager before leaving the club.

This again is rumoured to be due to his inability to adapt to the Portuguese manager’s tactical instructions. However, what is worth taking note of, is the fact that there has also been resistance from some players to join the illustrious club due to a lack of trust in the United boss’ style of play and excessive defensive emphasis.

Rumour mills were churning thick and fast when Cristiano Ronaldo’s future at Real Madrid was doubtful, that the Portuguese star didn’t want to reunite with his old club due to his strained relationship with Mourinho.

This, many say, was cultivated during the Portuguese manager’s time at the helm of Los Blancos when the latter planted excessive defensive duties on CR7. Following this, Matteo Kovacic reportedly turned down the offer to move to Old Trafford citing similar reasons.