Jose Mourinho won’t last long at Manchester United if he continues to play such a dour brand of defensive football, reckons Craig Bellamy.
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The former Liverpool striker is one of the better football pundits on TV right now and made the comments after United’s Champions League win against Benfica.
They scraped a 1-0 victory away from home, but the performance was uninspiring, coming off the back of the monstrously defensive show against Liverpool last weekend.
“Manchester United are more than titles,” Bellamy told Sky Sports, cited in Goal.
“As a football club they have an identity that’s worth more than a title. As a club they have a certain way of playing and as a club they’ve let that go for the time being.
“Going from winning [the league] on a regular basis, to now coming off it has got them in that much of a panic.
“Bobby Charlton said it through the years that Mourinho isn’t a Man United type of manager. At the moment, for their desperation to win trophies, to get back to the top, they will bring him in and they will let it go for now, but there will only be a period Manchester United supporters and Manchester United as a football club will allow this to happen for.
“Manchester United is a huge club, with a huge tradition, and you don’t want to be going too far away from that.”
We understand where Bellamy is coming from, but the reality is that as a Liverpool fan, we’d snap your hand off if you offered us a title won through ultra-defensive tactics.
Following their demise since Alex Ferguson’s retirement, United are probably in the same situation – although to a lesser extent due to their success under the Scot.
We do know though that if Jurgen Klopp achieves real success at Liverpool, it’ll taste incomparably sweet – due to the brilliant football he demands and the way he tries to improve players on the training ground rather than solely using the transfer market.