A couple of years ago, Jose Mourinho reflected on the differences between the Chelsea side he managed in his first spell and the team he took to a title in 2015.
The side he managed until last year was more “artistic”, Mourinho said in an interview with Gary Neville, but in 2004-2006, the players were more ruthless.
“People like Robben, Duff, even Joe Cole in his two great seasons with me were people with appetite to kill matches, to finish.”
Perhaps there was evidence of the swift estrangement which unfolded last season with his talk of the artistic qualities of that Chelsea side. Artistic merit was all very well, but it has never been the quality Mourinho most admired.
Mourinho prizes the appetite to kill matches, to win, above everything else. There is no overarching philosophy, there is no project, there is just a need to win.
Manchester United hired him because they need to win too. They have sated other desires by spending €100 million on Paul Pogba, a desire which has made the talk of value for money meaningless. United needed to spend a lot of money, they didn’t need value. Pogba is a statement and Mourinho is another.
So the opening day victory at Bournemouth can be seen as the first step on that mission to restore United to where they feel they belong. Pogba’s signing will help them get there, but already by choosing the club, by allowing them to spend €100 million on a player, he has served a key purpose.
Mourinho’s first league selection contained players who could be said to possess the appetite to kill he cherishes. Wayne Rooney and Zlatan Ibrahimovic both scored and the victory was an example of all that Mourinho desires from a performance or, to be more precise, it was a victory which is all that he desires.
In the first half, only David de Gea had fewer touches than Zlatan, while Rooney gave a classic late era performance, full of missteps, heavy-footedness and uncertainty.
Rooney once possessed the appetite to kill but these days it is hard to spot it, even if he did get United’s second goal.
Afterwards Rooney talked about his own form and how he believed he was worth his place in the side. He had nothing to prove to anyone and he’d score goals when picked in a forward position.
This may have been a reference to his selection in midfield last season, but Rooney was moved there because it seemed he couldn’t play upfront any longer.
And that may not have changed. There was a ruthlessness to Mourinho’s selection, but it was a ruthlessness that may have had as little mercy for those in his side as Bournemouth’s.
If there is a future for Rooney at Manchester United, it is hard to see what it can be if he is in a line-up with Ibrahimovic, Juan Mata and Marouane Fellaini. Some of these players may have wondered how they could prove their worth in a side so lacking in pace with Anthony Martial’s pace marginalised on the wing.
But Mourinho, at this stage of his career, is unlikely to be interested in learning something new. Most of what he does helps to confirm something he had believed before.
He has dismissed those who talk of a project, telling Neville in 2014: “The project is never the same from when we start to when we end…I’m not fundamentalist. And I think some people in football are becoming a bit fundamentalist.”
Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan will immediately change the dynamic of the team and Rooney may be one of those who is sacrificed. Mata will be too, of course, even if he opened the scoring on Sunday.
Mourinho insists he is not a fundamentalist and when it comes to a style of play, he might be right, but it happens that everything he wants his sides to do is based on a fear of losing.
On that basis, you may end up with a certain style and you may end up stressing certain fundamentals.
More importantly, when it comes to the story Mourinho tells himself about his team, the values never change. He has an overarching need to win. Bournemouth were alerted to that today, but it is not just Manchester United’s opponents who will be reminded this season of Mourinho’s relentless need for victory.
