Opinions are like arseholes mate, we all have one. You were right about one thing though, Fergie does like/respect Mourinho, he has the arrogance and confidence that makes winners. I also think Mourinho looks at Fergie with respect and admiration, I think he would love to follow him and try to reach his standard.
If Fergie was still at United, Mourinho would definitely be his number 2 right now and achieved the first stage of his ambition.
Good job we all have one then.............. As i type this apparently your club are going into flap mode about the possibility of losing JM to Inter.Wouldn't it be funny if your board ****s up and you miss out on the best manager on the planet?...... Fergie will hit the bottle
Next season we will know the answer to whether Pep > Jose or Jose > Pep. Both will have similar budgets. Both or one might not have CL. Real vs Barca was a no contest back then, when both went head to head. Jose made a fist of that and managed to stop the best Barca team. I don't think Pep will be able to do the same to Jose in EPL. As much as I hate Jose, he is still the best manager ever in PL history.
Back in those days El Classico was the only really competitive game for both RM and Barca - much the same as the SPL used to be with the old Celtic and Rangers rivalry. Whoever was in the ascendency that particular year took the El Classico spoils and then the two clubs went their separate ways to fight over the other 60 la Liga points. Should we get Jose, the key to the two of them continuing their rivalry will be the players that both managers bring in during the summer as neither squad has anything like the strength in depth that they should have. I suspect Pep will go for one or two big names, we on the other hand, could do with five or six quality players to strengthen and give cover for the squad. Jose knows what a long, hard slog the PL is - Pep has yet to experience the joys of sitting in the away dugout at Stoke in mid-January with injuries mounting to key players because we don't get a winter break.
Saw the time you posted that and can only assume you were on some heavy midnight binge session before posting that.
Well in terms of who is better, you must look at win percentage of games and trophies won. With Jose v SAF its contentious. In terms of games in the PL era, their win percentages are Jose: (in his two terms at Chelsea combined) 62.1% SAF: 59.6% So Jose just about edges it by a couple of percent In terms of Premier League triumphs SAF won 13 out of 21 PL seasons he was manager, giving him a title winning ratio of 61.9% Mourinho won 3 out of the 5 full seasons he had as manager of Chelsea, giving him a winning ratio of bang on 60% So SAF edges that one by 1.9%. Objectively speaking, since we could probably count this season as a Mourinho non title winning season (lets face it, we wouldnt have won the league if he had stayed), then SAF wins, combined with the fact that SAF's record is over a much longer period of time too. I'd say it would have to go to SAF. But it's close, and Jose is the only other manager who comes anywhere near him, which is why they liked each other. I'd also have to add in JM's defence, that he had Roman as chairman, who sacked him twice, dictated what players he had to sign (cough* Shevchenko) Where as SAF was, rightly so, given carte blanche at United, at least until the Glazers came, because they trusted that he knew football better than a bunch of suits and left the footballing side to him, something Roman never afforded to Jose.
Good post Bod, nice to see a bit of balance in here Only thing I disagree with is the argument that SAF had carte blanche at Utd - that was never the case. Under the plc we missed out on a huge number of players (Shearer, Batistuta, Robben, Essien and Kluivert to name a few) because the plc was too tight fisted and unwilling to spend on fees or wages. At a time when we were supposedly the richest club in the world SAF couldn't get the board to agree Batistuta's wages, match Newcastle's bid for Shearer, or get them to pay more than £7m for Robben. Even when he managed to swing the funds to sign Rooney, the board Roman is a bit of a knob as a chairman, but he does give his managers unfettered access to spend any amount of money they want on any player they want. Then swings the axe if that player turns out to be **** of course If anything that's more of a testament to SAF's skill in the market - he signed Sheringham instead of Shearer, Yorke instead of Batistuta and Carrick instead of Essien and the rest is history
I thought Jose was a superior tactician (that does'nt make him a better manager)... and that usually showed when they met head to head.
I'd agree Mourinho is a superior tactician, although that didn't make much of a difference in their head to head record. After all, it wasn't superior tactics that saw Keane get sent off, Scholes have a goal wrongly ruled out and Howard fumble when Porto won in 2004. Nor was it superior tactics that saw Nani get sent off in 2013. In fact SAF had set his tactics up much better than Mourinho in the game against Real - we had largely nullified Ronaldo and we were dominant until the dismissal. The main reason Mourinho has seven wins and SAF has three in their head to head record is how dominant Chelsea were in the 04/05 season when we were probably the worst we have been under SAF in the Premier League. Outside of that season, the head to head record is one win apiece in the league, one apiece in the cups, and 2-1 to Mourinho in the CL. Hardly earth shatteringly superior by any measure, particularly given how much we bossed Inter in 09 and how Porto and Real squeezed past us in 04 and 13.
