How Jose Mourinho may have been right about Manchester United

In one of his interviews, Jose Mourinho had said that finishing second with this Manchester United team is one of his biggest achievements so far. Jose Mourinho was appointed the manager of Manchester United in 2016 and was in charge of the club for two and a half seasons. He was sacked in December 2018, after a 3-1 loss to Liverpool.

In his first season in charge of the Red Devils, they finished 6th in the league but they won the Community Shield, the League Cup, and a victory over Ajax in the Europa league confirmed their qualification to the Champions League.

In his first season, he did meet expectations. As always, people expected him to deliver more success in his second season. In his second season, they finished 2nd and lost the FA Cup final to Chelsea.

Jose Mourinho celebrates his Europa League victory after beating Ajax

The first two seasons under Mourinho were arguably the best two seasons Manchester United have had post-Sir Alex Ferguson. Jose Mourinho has been one of the best managers the game has seen and has won almost every trophy there is to win.

When he said that finishing 2nd with Manchester United measures to the best of his success, people laughed at him.

What if he was right?

When he was sacked, Manchester United was going through a rough phase, and the loss to Liverpool was the final nail in the coffin. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer replaced him at the Theater of Dreams and the club looked like they finally found an heir to Sir Alex Ferguson.

He won a majority of his games as interim manager, and then took United through to the quarterfinals of the Champions League for the first time since 2013. The magical night in Paris was one of the best nights the club witnessed post Sir Alex's reign.

Everything looked smooth, and then he was appointed the full-time manager of the club. Every manager has a honeymoon period with a club and when the honeymoon period is over, reality strikes.

Since his full-time appointment, United have been knocked out of the FA Cup by Wolves, and then been knocked out by Barcelona in the Champions League. They also suffered losses to Wolves, Arsenal, and Everton in the Premier League.

They are currently sixth in the league and have a chance to make it to the top 4, but they have to beat Manchester City and Chelsea for it.

In recent press conferences, Ole has not hidden the problems United have been facing, the demotivated players, the ageing squad, the wait for transfers, and the divided dressing room.

Jose Mourinho also faced the same things, the board could not help him get the right signings, and this year they could only add Fred and Diego Dalot to the squad. On the other hand, Liverpool and Manchester City have created the squads their managers asked for and the fruitful product can be seen in the form of results for the clubs.

Manchester United, on the other hand, have a problem from top to bottom in their hierarchical structure, and Ole has a huge task ahead in the coming season.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Jose's style was not suited to the club's playing style, and he did not get the players he wanted. On top of these problems, we all know how big Jose Mourinho's ego is, and how he lost the dressing room.

His problems with Paul Pogba was something that never went unnoticed, and it seems like the problem is continuing with Ole as well. The whole squad had been inconsistent with their performance, and this became a major concern for him.

We can see now what he meant when he talked about his squad being not good enough, and how they need to add a lot of players to the squad in order to compete for titles in the future.

We can infer that he was not wrong, and when he said finishing 2nd with this United team was one of the highlights of his career, he was not wrong as well. He let the truth out in a different way. Jose Mourinho has been working as a pundit for Bien Sports and RT Sports.