Something’s got to give.
Jose Mourinho is under growing pressure at Manchester United, with reports that the club is already eyeing up Zinedine Zidane as his replacement.
Saturday’s defeat to West Ham earned Mourinho the unenviable honour of overseeing United’s worst start to a Premier League season in 29 years.
At the heart of Mourinho’s unstable position is his relationship with the Red Devils’ record signing, Paul Pogba.
After Pogba was stripped of the vice-captaincy midweek, the pair had a tense exchange at Carrington which was filmed and broadcast by Sky Sports News.
Yikes 😬 https://t.co/sWD0huU6aO
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) September 26, 2018
Airing the club’s dirty laundry out in public is not a great look and United legend Rio Ferdinand believes that the lack of focus on the football itself is a significant problem for his former side.
“The narrative of the club, especially this year from the pre-season, unfortunately hasn’t been football,” Ferdinand said on BT Sport.
“It’s been everything but football. It’s been about everything off the field about individual players, with spats, with little mini-wars within the club. That’s not right. That’s not how a successful football club works.
“You’ve got to make sure that there’s a harmony within the squad.”
The tense back-and-forth in training reportedly stemmed from Pogba’s Instagram activity during United’s League Cup defeat to Derby County on Tuesday.
And Ferdinand has advised Mourinho to limit his players’ use of social media around big games because it’s bringing about too many issues.
“We talk about little details like social media. I’ll be honest with you, if I was the manager of the football club I’d shut down social media,” he said.
“That’s the problem that keeps coming out, it’s something that all the fans are talking about. It’s something the manager talked about on the training pitch in front of the cameras. Shut it down.”
You can watch Ferdinand speak here:
"The narrative around the club this season has been everything but football."
"It's not just Jose."
"The place is a mess."
No punches pulled on #PLTonight.
Essential for Man Utd fans. pic.twitter.com/AeJ2edMAMh
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) September 29, 2018
