Ferguson wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes

When he first arrived in 2004, he was a slick, sophisticated avalanche of aggressive confidence and charisma. His high-profile spell at Real Madrid has visibly aged the Special One, and it appeared those dog days he endured there had taken their collective toll.

Mourinho was unprepared to offer the big headline. You could not have expected such a juxtaposed return. Where were the fireworks, the big red carpet and the fanfare? Shouldn't everyone have been sipping a nice glass of bubbly?

Well, it would appear that was something of a false dawn. José Mourinho is back; and he is certainly making sure one man in particular knows it.

Mourinho has always been one to partake in mind-games. Pre-match press conferences would always ultimately defer to a slagging match with Messrs Benitez, Wenger and Ferguson. It was something that the Portuguese relished, and offered the perfect headline opportunity to ensure the match build-up was dominated by Mourinho, and Mourinho alone. Redirecting pressure from the players and onto himself is something that the Blues boss does better than most.

Ferguson might have retired and Benitez might have buggered off (though not without one final earful of criticism), but Mourinho is still up for the fight. Surprisingly, he's had little to say about Arsenal. Perhaps he isn't concerned by them: "Nothing has changed with Arsenal", the Special One said. "In the eight years since I was here first, they still haven't won a trophy".

Whilst Wenger has seemingly escaped a scathing comment or two thanks to his own team's inadequacies, one man who has had to take a fair amount of criticism from Mourinho is the new Manchester United manager, David Moyes. In truth, Manchester United as a football club has become José's latest target. And oh, how small he has made that club look!

Mourinho is currently schooling Moyes and United. Not schooling in the convention sense. Schooling in terms of humiliation. And it all boils down to the Wayne Rooney situation.

José has absolutely pounced on Moyes after the former Everton boss made his first major faux-pas as United coach when he openly declared Rooney is considered second-choice - without a minute of competitive football being played. Not the best way of getting players on side, is it, David?

Mourinho has made sure Moyes acknowledges his error. Such an almighty ****-up has resulted in United CEO Ed Woodward returning home from the club's pre-season tour of Australia to deal with "urgent transfer news".

Whilst United insist it is nothing to do with the Rooney saga, and the press are doing their best to say it is to secure the supposedly imminent signing of Cesc Fabregas, one would suggest this is United trying to dig themselves out of a hole. Mainly because Barcelona's vice-president Jose Maria Bartome has said Cesc is going nowhere. Nice try, though.

Chelsea have struck a serious psychological blow without really even doing anything. Whilst there were rumours of a £10 million-plus-a-player bid (supposedly Juan Mata or David Luiz, but Chelsea have categorically quashed these rumours to make United look even more stupid), the Blues later confirmed a monetary bid - allegedly of £20 million - that was duly turned down by the current Premier League champions.

The fact that the official Chelsea website put this all up in writing was a very shrewd move. After the press' failed attempt to unsettle Chelsea over the future of Luiz and Mata, it made United's attempts to claw back some credibility look all the more humorously futile, and at the same time make it quite clear that Rooney is wanted at the club.

It has all left Wayne rather angry, and a little bit confused. Mourinho has warned against Rooney accepting second-choice status at Manchester United in a World Cup year. He has also gone on record as saying he "wants the player". Even for someone with Rooney's intelligence, such an equation is easy to work out. He's unwanted at Manchester United, and he wants out. Chelsea want him, and are willing to do business. As for the transfer, according to Mourinho the ball is firmly in United's court.

Whether Chelsea sign the player or not, this is a considerable mental triumph. United fans seem absolutely petrified of the prospect of a rejuvenated Rooney leading a Chelsea side consisting of some of the world's best young attacking talent, and he would no doubt be an improvement on the Blues' misfiring duo of Demba Ba and Fernando Torres.

But it is if Chelsea don't sign the player that the greatest damage will have been inflicted. This situation represents David Moyes' first test as Manchester United boss, and he has failed quite miserably. He now has his second-best player being talked up by the side that is favourite to win the Premier League title this season, and Rooney's head undoubtedly will have been turned by the allure of the Stamford Bridge club.

But should Wayne stay, United will have on their hands a sulking superstar costing them £250,000-a-week. So whilst José says that the decision is ultimately United's, unless the Red Devils can conjure up an alternate foreign suitor and sell him at a price equal to what Chelsea offer, the real truth of it is the United board and manager are currently dancing to whatever beat Mourinho decides.

Such is Mourinho's dominance over the Manchester club, supposedly everyone associated with Manchester United has been banned from talking about Wayne Rooney. Mourinho has wasted no time in mocking this action as well - in his press conference in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, the Special One told a reporter off for mentioning Rooney's name, and told him to stand at the back of the press conference with his face against the wall!
And you may ask where is Sir Alex Ferguson while all this is unfolding? - the answer may be that he is still bellowing in the 4th officials ear while Mourinho was slipping Modric on.

Whether Chelsea sign the player or not, this is a considerable mental triumph. United fans seem absolutely petrified of the prospect of a rejuvenated Rooney leading a Chelsea side consisting of some of the world's best young attacking talent, and he would no doubt be an improvement on the Blues' misfiring duo of Demba Ba and Fernando Torres

That's my favourite bit...

why would he? rooney would be almost guaranteed to fall out with mourinho too.

Chelsea have the manager they deserve..a disgusting eye-gouging self publicist a-hole.

You have to be a at a club for more than 2 years to bring some youth through

lets face rooney is not the brightest now is he,all he wants to do is play football, if chelsea give him that  he will be off.

wether he performs well is anybody,s guess

You cant see the wood for the trees............

Jokers have left the forum or perhaps their mummys will not let them post after 8pm...

Watching the game nothing has changed at Man Utd except the manager.Could have been Fergie in the dugout though..

Hard to believe the stats though as Utd were far superior in every department.Goes to show what a load of bo llucks they are as could have been six or seven and Swansea scored via a Welbeck mistake...

indeed

Ozil signing for Arsenal. What is Moyes doing? Moyes isn't fit to manage on Football Manager.

THE CHOSEN ONE

I remember Fergie getting dogs abuse from the mancs fickle fans when he first became manager.

Moyes is far from out of his depth
The unspeaken truth of the matter is that Ferguson was allowed to get away with murder by the English authorities
Look at what happened at anfield last season.
LFC dominated the game but were on the wrong end of 3  big refereeing decisions so lost 2-1.
Same thing happened at Chelsea.
Moyes goes to Anfield, his team dominate yet the ref doesn't see the need to send off an LFC player nor give a pen to MUFC.


I am utterly convinced, that with his pal mike riley the head of referees, Ferguson had a massive input into match day officials and how they were to deal with opponents.
Its the only reason they finished 10 pts clear last year.

When Moggi was doing the same thing in Italy the Italians sent Juventus down a division and Moggi got a prison sentence

Ferguson was a fraud. His teams dominated through finance, corruption, cronyism. Everything but football ability.
He was an above average coach at best.
How many teams did Ferguson create that dominated Europe?
The true barometer of a great coach.
Zero.
After all a guy called Jurgen Bogs won 10 east german titles in a row with dynamo berlin in the 80s.
That's among the kind of people where fergusons legacy lies.
The great liars and bullies of sporting history.

In this day and age where coaches and managers are lucky to last 2 years, even pep can't take the heat at Barca. Moronho never sticks around for longer than 3 years.
Yet somehow we are supposed to believe that sir fluckerson was some kind of genius. The truth is he operated in his own little bubble. Under his rules and the FA were happy to let him get away with bullying the rest of English football for his own personal glory.

Moyes should take a leaf out of brian clough's book. 'You can take all your trophies, all your medals, all your pots and pans and throw them in the bin. Because you won them all through cheating.'

Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, however implausible, must be the truth.

How was 1 man allowed to stay in the supposed biggest job in English club football for 20 odd years?
The pressure to come up with results for these guys is immense, year in year out.
Look at Pep. Look at all the Liverpool managers, they never lasted 20 years.

The only logical conclusion is that English football has been run for the benefit of MUFC and particularly Ferguson.

Truth is Man Utd have been playing long ball counter attacking negative football ever since beckham left.
Especially against the bigger teams.
Ferguson, bitten by the failure of Veron and the attitude of van Nistelroy was too afraid to go into mainland Europe and buy genuine top class footballers.
HIs preferred M.O. was to tap up players from other EPL sides.
This explains MUFC ham fisted approach in the transfer market this summer.
I mean 25m for Fabregas to leave Barca, c'mon!
You really want him then bid 50 ffs.

Ferguson hasn't left MUFC in a bad state. It will be a seismic shock if they don't get in the top 4 but now MUFC are going to have to operate in the realpolitik of mainstream Europe  now.
That means paying top price, and I mean 50m for the best players.

The one potentially great team he built should have followed on from the 99 UCL team.
midfield of Keane, beckham, scholes plus gigs is probably the best seen in the EPL.

But that team underachieved in Europe.
And a lot of that was down to the coach.
They were counter attacked to death by Madrid in 2000 and Munich got their revenge in 2001.

IMO a truly great coach would have won more champions leagues with that team.

Instead he p1ssed beckham off, dilly dallied over retirement and was far more concerned with building his power base at home.
He will probably look at beating LFC 18 titles as some kind of earth shattering achievement. All that shows is a shift in power in English club football.
Dynamo Berlin all over again

Competitve no

When England won the world cup in 66, then the division 1, that was a competitive league.
And Man U were the best team around under Matt Busby who was a much much better manager.

There were great teams around then. Even Newcastle won a European trophy around that time ffs.

People bang on about the bottom team in the EPL beating the top but what was noticeable were all the lickspittle mini-me fergusons who would enjoy breaking arsenal players legs but rollover and hand over 3 points when ever MUFc rolled into town.
All the Pulises, the likes of McLeish, Allardyce would happily do their master's bidding.
And it shouldn't go un-remarked that the thuggish approach of the likes of Stoke and Bolton was a leaf taken straight out of Ferguson's book whenever Wenger's Arsenal or Benitez Liverpool would turn up at old Trafford.
With referees like Riley or Webb happily playing along.

this Woodward guy doesn't seem like the sharpest operator either....