I keep hoping this thread will disappear, but it won't. It lingers like a stale fart under the duvet after a dinner of too much corned beef and cabbage.
LvG was and is still far too maligned on here. There were good points about him, and many are right to point out that his football was effective most of the time. Of course, his brief stint in the CL was infuriating. There were even a few spots here and there where the Philosophy looked alright and I enjoyed the performance. However, after 2 years those good performances were few and far between. The majority of the football was boring, so so boring. The excitement for United matchday dwindled.
Most of these arguments against Mourinho are frankly, asinine.
"We had more points under LvG, therefore LvG is a better manager." Wrong. First comparing one season to another season is merely a talking point, it does not, however, empirically prove one manager is better than another. If LvG's league position and Win Loss Draw ratio in his seasons with United were better than some of SAF's, does that make LvG a better manager? No. There are far too many components and variants from season to season, or even match to match, that make any sort of comparison based on league position, or statistics, or win loss ratio, basically nothing more than a talking point.
"Klopp and Conte and LvG are better managers than Mou, because they're higher than us in the league." I suspect, for some of you, this is the real crux of the issue with Mourinho. You want the cow in the other field, it's a better cow, as SAF would've said. Sure, you can have the opinion that those are better coaches, and you might be right. Basically, post-SAF too many want to blame the manager for everything, probably including El Nino, Brexit and climate change. The temptation is to simplify and reduce everything down to one focus point, the manager. It's false logic and doesn't take into account other teams, schedule, injuries, player decline and improvement, luck, refs, opposing goalkeepers having sterling performances against us, and the generally cyclical and up and down nature of football among an amazing myriad of other factors - too many for anyone to comprehend. So, let's just make it easy then shall we, let's focus solely on the manager. That's lazy. Then there are those who want to peddle doom and gloom. The same sort who de-cry things like "We'll never catch up to City", "We're becoming Liverpool", "We'll never sign a quality player", "We're going to go broke", because of the Glazers, SAF, Moyes, LvG or Mourinho. Yet, United still exists, the doom and gloom always subsides, every single time, because this type of thinking is always proved false, every single time. It seems shocking that the club might actually be run by competent people, more than capable of accounting for many, many aspects of football from performance to tactics to scouting.
"Our forwards missing their shots is Mourinho's fault." This is mystifying, bizarre thinking that lacks all logic, and I fear for someone's health and safety if they apply this type of thinking in normal day to day life. This also strangely masks one side of the argument, it should say, "Our forwards keep missing their chances, after some pretty darn good football that we should probably credit to Mourinho."
"Well, results were better under LvG than Mourinho, that's all that matters." Which brings me to my final point. It could certainly be the case that LVG's football was more effective in getting results than Mou's team has been so far, at this early stage of his career at United. But I value Performance over Results. Entertainment over Effectiveness. Some of you seem to be arguing for the opposite: Results over Performance. Effectiveness over Entertainment. I've always thought what I value was intrinsic in the DNA of a United supporter. I pity someone who values results over everything else. I think you're missing out on the most important thing about football - the football itself.
