I dont want Mourinho back, but with enough time for emotions to cool down, looking at his United record:
His first season was reasonably good. The 2 trophies felt like a good springboard and made up for a poor league finish as we got CL return.
His second season was better, 25 wins in the league and a second season where we defended well. Finished a worthy second on 81 points which seems ridiculously implausible for us now.
In these 2 seasons, over 76 league games, we only scored 122 goals, and conceded 57. So attack wasn't great despite Ibrahimovic scoring plenty and defence was solid enough.
In Europe, he won the europa, then cruised through CL group only to lose to sevilla after an away draw. That was a bad blow. In his last season we were second in a tricky group and he was gone by the time last 16 game. So a fair performance in europe compared to what went before and after. 'Eritage.
We competed reasonably well against the big teams, not amazing, but decent.
Recruitment wise I would say, fees considered, Dalot, Lindelof, Ibrahimovic, Matic and Fred were all decent or better. Fred arguably too much but played over 200 games and still got a fee on departure. I think he laboured next to McTominay for far too long and was probably a better player than his spell here showed.
Pogba, Sanchez, Bailly, Mkhitaryan and Lukaku were in my opinion failings. You can understand pogba and lukaku though- both had pedigree and again, lukaku fee was almost recouped so recruitment wise overall, mourinho wasnt that bad.
I would say in summary he should have been backed more than fred and dalot at the start of his final season. Its commonly said now that he wanted rid of martial which looks crazy now that we didnt do it.
In terms of youth, it wasn't great and with mata, sanchez, jones, rojo, fellaini, carrick and valencia all being phased out during his spell, he probably could have looked to the academy more, but maybe that wasnt his failing? Were we producing enough quality? By the time he finished the squad was a bit imbalanced.
Lastly, the style never quite clicked. I think fans would have accepted a less aesthetic style if it came in the form of a really imposing, athletic and dominant physical team. But we looked meek and defensive rather than an Italian style relish of defence and allowing some attackers to turn a game.
His last season I regret looking back. We're doing worse now than we were when he left and certainly his departure now seemed like yielding to a weak mentality that has persisted since. Rashford, Martial remain stinking the place out. Pogba and Lingard are well gone and we're better for it. I wonder if he'd been given some slack in January might we have ground something more from it, but probably not.
In Sumamry, he was nowhere near as bad as some suggest, but also didn't do enough to warrant anybody wanting him back.
