Premier League: How Jose Mourinho will succeed at Manchester United next season
Taking his first training session, Mourinho orders the side to take a quick mile to warm up, as he jogs along side them. Throughout, he makes sure that he is always slightly ahead of Juan Mata. From the start to the finish he carefully drifts a touch ahead of Mata before calling out, ‘Come on, Juan, I’m just an old man! Keep up!’
He then takes a quick passing drill, asking for Mata to line up alongside Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, Marouane Fellaini and Paddy McNair. They play piggy-in-the-middle, and Mourinho stops the play every 30 seconds to ask Mata to watch one of the other’s technique
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[MOURINHO DEMANDS WRITTEN ASSURANCES OVER UNITED ROLE]
[WHY ONLY COMMUNISM AND MOURINHO CAN SAVE UNITED FROM FERGUSON]
“That’s how you pass a ball, Marouane! Like that, Juan.”
Under his breath, Mourinho mentions that the works of Werner Herzog are crass and overrated, and an example of the decadence of modern democratic society.
“What was that?” Mata asks, out of breath and already peeved.
“You heard me. Michael Bay, now there’s a director!” Mourinho replied.
Mata had enough, and turned towards the complex to get an ice bath and a salted caramel protein shake. He’d tell his mates at the Splendid Kitchen all about this over an exquisitely hoppy IPA.
October 2016
Bobby Charlton gives an interview with a broadsheet saying he is concerned over the possible damage done to the club’s legacy ‘if they aren’t careful about their image,’ saying the club’s attacking traditions should not be compromised, and praised the virtues of youth. By failing to explicitly support Mourinho, the press run the story as the new manager being under pressure already.
November 2016
Mourinho puts on some slim fitting black trousers and plimsolls, a black hoodie, and a balaclava. At 2am he gets into his car and drives from his house outside Macclesfield to Old Trafford. With a grappling hook gun, he fires it over the Bobby Charlton Stand and winches himself up the side of the stand.
Gingerly, he inches his way over to the ledge closest to the pitch. He wedges his feet into a groove in the canopy, and tugs at the line that is hooked around one of the satellite dishes on the top of the stadium, and assured of the integrity of the system he’s set up, dangles off the edge of the stand. From his backpack he fetches the blowtorch he bought off Amazon, and before he even turns it up to full, he can feel the heat against his face, and starts sweating in the cold night air.
“SIR BOOBY CHARLTON STAND”
February 2017
Manchester United take on Arsenal at home with both sides still in contention for the Premier League. The two managers, Mourinho and Arsene Wenger, have been needling one another for a decade, and that doesn’t change in the 2016/17. Relations are at their worst ever, with Mourinho spending two hours on Goals on Sunday after a 1-0 win, discussing the Arsenal manager. While he was careful to be exceptionally, remarkably effusive in his praise and respect for Wenger, the whole performance is mildly undermined by a t-shirt with all the dates in the last decade and a bit that it became mathematically impossible for Arsenal to win the league.
15 May 2017
Mourinho walks down the corridor of Carrington on his way to discuss the previous match with his video analyst. He sees Charlton ahead of him at the other end of the slightly-too-narrow path. Charlton is taking some schoolkids who have won a competition of a tour of the training ground, and Mourinho can hear him recounting a story of winning the Champions League in the sixties.
The two of them are now walking towards one another, and while both of them keep a friendly face on for the children, who are oblivious to the undercurrent of mutual loathing between the two. Underneath the ****-eating grins the two of them sport, the two never break eye contact, not even blinking, as they get closer and closer together.
With just a split second before the two of them meet, a staff member cries, ‘Careful, lads!’ But it’s too late. Both smash into one another, shoulder against shoulder, leaving the two of them on the floor after they spin around and tumble at the same time. Mourinho calls Charlton something unmentionable as he yelps in pain, clutching his shoulder. Charlton just looks at him, still not breaking his gaze, still not breaking.
21 May 2017
After a routine FA Cup final success against Arsenal, who lost to United 2-0 after injuries in the first two minutes to Jack Wilshere and Petr Cech, and open goal misses from Olivier Giroud and Danny Welbeck, and Arsenal’s player of the season, Juan Mata, Mourinho retires to the lounge to celebrate with his players and the executives.
It’s a successful first season for Mourinho, with a Premier League title, and the club’s first FA Cup in years, but he spots Charlton at the other end of the room. He thinks he catches him mouthing ‘disgrace to the club,’ to Alex Ferguson and club guest of the day, Ryan Giggs, who now manages Valencia.
Mourinho puts down
his glass of champagne. He leaves the room for a minute. Calmly, he
returns to the room, walking behind Charlton. Just as Giggs and Ferguson
motion to Charlton to stop talking lest Mourinho hear him, Mourinho
sticks out a finger, and pulls Charlton’s head back by sticking his
finger in his eye and yanking back. Charlton yelps. Giggs starts texting
a broadsheet journalist with the details. Ferguson looks in vain for
Paul Scholes to try and intervene, but by that time, it’s already done.
Mourinho has his winner’s medals, and saunters out of the stadium.
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