I appreciate they haven’t had much experience at doing it – just twice in three decades to be fair – but Manchester United are utterly clueless when it comes to the delicate art of changing managers.

When they got the David Moyes sacking horribly wrong, with everyone down to the cleaners finding out before he did, I assumed they would learn from the error of their ways and remove their next boss in a dignified manner. I was wrong.

If anything, the dismissal of Louis van Gaal was even more of a shambles that the Moyes one. For the news that he was going to be sacked to leak out no more than half an hour after he had just won the FA Cup was devoid of dignity.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully agree that he needed to go. But there are ways and means of giving your manager the boot and this was handled without a modicum of decorum.

Van Gaal may have been a bit of a lame duck, but he deserved better than to spend his post-victory press conference being told by journalists that he was getting sacked on Monday. It was humiliating for the man. They might as well have just scribbled ‘you’re fired’ on a scrap of paper and stuffed it inside the FA Cup.

But that’s in the past and United’s future is now all about another man – Jose Mourinho.

When Sir Alex Ferguson retired I said at the time that Mourinho and United was a marriage waiting to happen. I expected United to get their rebound manager – Moyes – out of the way and then turn to Mourinho to get things properly up and running. As it happened it took two rebound managers, but the almost inevitable union has finally taken place.

Although most United fans I have spoken too are ecstatic about the appointment, there are some who, even after watching their team’s poor excuse for football this season, are moaning that Mourinho doesn’t fit in with the club’s ethos.

He won’t play the kids, they are whining, he won’t play attacking football. He is too rude and abrasive to be a United manager.

Well, for starters, a club that has floundered aimlessly for three years needs to put its ethos on the back burner for a while. It’s all very well having a ‘philosophy’ while you are winning, but when you are finishing 15 points behind Leicester City in the league, worrying about some mythical ethos is a bit daft.

If Mourinho says he will win the league playing 35-year-olds, winning every game 1-0, then right now United should gratefully accept it. I wouldn’t call them beggars, but they certainly aren’t choosers at the moment.

They might as well have just scribbled ‘you’re fired’ on a scrap of paper and stuffed it inside the FA Cup

More importantly than that, however, is the fact that Mourinho has wanted to be at Old Trafford for a while. Over the years he has frequently poured praise on Sir Alex and the club. You get the distinct impression that this isn’t just another job for him.

On that basis he will probably refine himself, his tactics and his management style to suit the position. Those who think he is a park-the-bus, one-trick-pony are grossly mistaken – his track record at the biggest clubs in Europe proves he is adaptable.

If the fans demand attacking football, that is what he will try and give them. If they want to see youth given its chance, he will do that. If they want him to be slightly less arrogant, well, er, they might not get that one. But Sir Alex was hardly a shrinking violet was he, and he didn’t do too badly.

With the Premier League now the richest, most exciting and, as Leicester proved, most competitive league in the world, United needed an injection of adrenalin and energy to keep up with the rest, especially their neighbours with their new ‘greatest manager in the world’.

Mourinho will ruffle a few feathers in Manchester. It won’t be a smooth journey under his leadership. He will possibly upset some fans, he will probably upset some players and he will definitely upset some opponents.

But he will also bring three things to the Old Trafford table that have been absent for years now – excitement, belief and success.

And for that, everyone who supports the club should be grateful.

Waking a giant

We may just have witnessed the birth of one of the greatest football partnerships of the next decade.

When I suggested a few weeks ago that Rafa Benitez should stick with relegated Newcastle United and create something special, I didn’t really think he would have the courage to do so.

But he has, committing himself to a new three-year deal after being promised lots of spending money and being given assurances he will be the man in control of the purse strings.

Newcastle are one of English football’s most notorious sleeping giants. I suspect they may just have started to stir…

Top of the underdogs

I recently suggested Leicester’s league title was the greatest achievement in the history of team sport. Since then I have received a number of e-mails questioning my call (there’s another printed below).

The general theme seems to be suggesting teams like Nottingham Forest, Ipswich Town, Blackburn Rovers and Leeds United all achieved as much if not more than Claudio Ranieiri’s Foxes. And I have to admit I do appreciate where you are coming from on this.

However, and this is why I stand by my statement, all of those clubs achieved what they did when football’s playing field was considerably more level. In those days, what you could afford to spend on players was pretty much dictated by how many people came through the turnstiles and how well your club was run.

There was no obscene television money, massive transfer fees or rich owners pumping billions into the sport. It was a collection of locally owned football clubs participating in a league that just about every team believed they had a slim chance of winning.

There was a gap between the top teams and the rest, but it was absolutely nothing like it is these days. Not even close.

When you look at the money spent by the two Manchester clubs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool over the past few years and compare that with Leicester, what they achieved simply should not have been able to happen in the modern era.

And that is why I see it as the greatest team triumph in the history of football.

Not because I believe football only started when the Premier League came into existence – regular readers will know that is actually one of my pet hates – but because, on paper, there was absolutely no way Leicester should have been able to win the title.

Look at Ranieri’s starting 11. Now look at Manchester City’s. It’s like looking at a first team and a reserve team. And yet, despite having inferior (in theory) players and despite having spent a fraction of what the top teams did, they still won the league. By 10 points.

What Ipswich, Leeds and particularly Nottingham Forest did back in the day was truly magnificent. But they achieved their successes at a time when just about every club had a chance to come good. That is no longer the case. And that’s what puts Leicester top of the underdog pile.

Your say

“While admiring Leicester City’s achievement, I agree with Joe Herrera (May 22) that such miracles have taken place in the past: Nottingham Forest, Blackburn and Ipswich.

“And what about the achievements of the great Leeds United side who in the mid-1960s came out of the obscurity of the second division to finish runners-up to Manchester United on goal average and lose to Liverpool in the FA Cup final after extra time;

“Not to mention the two league titles, FA Cup, Football League Cup and two Uefa Cups.

“By the way, I am a Leeds fan.

“Finally, I would like to ask your opinion about an issue that seems to go unmentioned. Whatever happened to the British, if not the English manager? Why don’t the top teams have British managers any more?” Joe Mamo, e-mail.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade