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Mourinho, Shut it!

There is only so much delusions of grandeur a human being can take in a day. In reference to this from the ‘Special One’:

“If you want me to rule out ever being Manchester United manager I can’t. “Special clubs need special managers so in theory it could work, but nobody knows what the future is in football.

That was the first part. Then this:

“Manchester United have won it with ease since I have gone because no manager has put a team together that can rival them. But my teams always rival Manchester United and Sir Alex knows that.

“They are a great team but if I was at a top club in England I think the title race might have been a lot closer this year. Chelsea have had no stability, Arsenal are nowhere and Liverpool threatened but I don’t think anybody really thought they were ever going to win it,” he said. “I would not allow a team of mine to be so far behind. It is embarrassing in March. Manchester United have a great squad but are their players really that much better than Chelsea’s or Liverpool’s? I don’t think so. So something else must be the problem and somebody has to take responsibility for that. I beat Manchester United with Chelsea and Porto. Now I am ready to beat them with Inter.”

Ok, let’s take a deep breath, step back for a second and think. Yes, he was really successful and he’s great with the media and the press love him. But isn’t there a fine line between playing mind games and being downright tiring?

At least I thought so.

I also found it a little concerning that Mourinho, as a manager of a big European club, would pimp himself to a rival club. What would an Inter fan think? It’s fairly obvious that someone who has the ability to play games with the media would enjoy distancing himself from the club he’s just half a season into.

Getting into the actual matter of what he said, it’s instantly repulsive to think Mourinho could be our next manager, the day Fergie retires. Speaking from the heart yes, there are very few people in the footballing world that instantly turn me off. Mourinho is clearly among them.

What really saddens me, though, is the lack of a real alternative successor to the United job. We can perhaps include Martin O’Neill, whilst others may have too little experience or are just out of their depth.

It was a topic of much heated debate yesterday in the comments, and I have to agree with one of the suggestions put forth yesterday that while, Mourinho may be a really tough pill to swallow, it’s a concession many fans may have to make if they are to expect a manager to break from the considerable shadow of Fergie. United haven’t been really great at replacing outstanding managers. One would have to hark back to the time Sir Matt Busby stepped down. It was a period of musical chairs and mostly barren years before the club stumbled upon Fergie.

Moving on I don’t know how many people have watched the Watchmen, but this is an excellent reworking of one of the scenes, featuring Dr. Merseyside, aka, Rafa Benitez.

Meanwhile, Ferguson taunts Mourinho, saying Inter will play for penalties. Now this could either get Mourinho to try to get his team play attacking football exposing his hurriedly patched up back four or, of course, he could tell his team to play like he always tells them to play — defensively. With a spate of injuries in their defence, I’d say we have the upper hand.

On our injury list is Rio Ferdinand, who could make it for Wednesday’s clash. But more on that in tomorrow’s preview.