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THERE are two things Manchester United supporters need to know about Jose Mourinho's attitude to his new job. First, if United had offered him a six-year contract he would have signed it.

He is in the Premier League for the long term, and in his mind there is no better club to be at long-term than United.

Second, United have not set their newly appointed manager any targets for silverware at the end of his debut campaign, but the man himself has.

Mourinho will repeat the simple philosophy he has applied throughout his coaching career because he believes it brings the best from players, staff and himself: “We always aim to win every competition."

(Image: PA Wire)

To understand Mourinho's state of mind it helps to understand how he comes to be here. It's a different story to the one oft reported.

In early 2013, Mourinho was placed in a quandary over the future direction of his career. As he prepared to return to English football following three seasons at Real Madrid, during which he had won the Spanish title and ensured Pep Guardiola's departure from La Liga, Mourinho was presented with an unexpected choice of clubs.

At the personal invite of Sir Alex Ferguson, he'd been asked to succeed the Scot as Manchester United manager. Kept studiously secret by both sides, negotiations with the club were so advanced that plans had been made for Mourinho and his family to have use of a helicopter, so his children could live and study in London, while he coached in Manchester.

(Image: AFP/Getty)

Then the intervention of Roman Abramovich altered Mourinho's thinking.

The Russian's invitation to return to Chelsea appealed to the Portuguese as a father, enabling him to be with his wife, daughter and son in the capital. It also appealed to his professional pride.

Re-appointing Mourinho six years (and seven attempted replacements) after sacking him represented a public acknowledgement that Abramovich had been wrong to dispense with the services of the most successful manager Chelsea ever had. More importantly, it presented an opportunity to complete unfinished business by winning the Champions League for the club.

Mourinho chose Chelsea, leaving his friend Ferguson to swap a carefully planned succession for the famously scrambled appointment of David Moyes; out shopping with his wife when he received the phone call to meet his fellow Scot. From a purely sporting perspective, though, the Portuguese's decision seemed strange.

(Image: John Powell)

United were on their way to one of those Premier League title wins that had long since become expected under Ferguson. They had a stronger squad than Chelsea, a proven pipeline of youth talent, were a far bigger football club with a far greater support, and their incoming chief executive had made it clear that finances would not be an issue when it came to transfer fees and players' wages

Chelsea were hamstrung by UEFA's new Financial Fair Play regulations, coupled with their owner's insistence that recruitment expenditure had to be covered by the club's own revenues.

Abramovich also demanded that Mourinho promote players from an academy that had yet to produce a single first-team regular for Chelsea, despite years of lavish investment. The Russian wanted the Premier League title back for the first time in four years and a Champions League win, yet would not grant Mourinho control of transfers.

It was not hard for close friends to predict that Abramovich would never be satisfied; that eventually the dysfunctional nature of the club would engulf another coach. That Mourinho took the job regardless, that he managed to build a title-winning side, is a mark of his qualities as a leader.

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Three years down a line Ed Woodward, Moyes and – in particular – Louis van Gaal have drawn with the accuracy of a drunk man, Mourinho finally arrived at Old Trafford to a chorus of queries.

United's board were split on his appointment, approaching a number of alternative candidates for the position. The unravelling of his final season at Stamford Bridge - “a disaster” by Mourinho's own account – has seen a coach who has won at least one league title in each of the four nations where he has managed as well as claiming two Champions League titles, repeatedly written off as yesterday's man.

Third question at Mourinho's first Manchester United press conference: “Do you have a point to prove?”

The most telling part of the 53-year-old's reply was not the sentence that made the headlines, the loaded reference to managers who last won the Premiership title a decade ago.

It was the discussion of his personal motivation. “I play against myself,” Mourinho said. “That is my feeling many, many times. I feel I have to prove not to the others but to myself. It is my nature. I would never be able to work without success. That is my nature.”

(Image: Man Utd via Getty)

In many ways, United are fortunate to be able to appoint Mourinho at this moment in his storied career. Fortunate that the most successful Premier League manager outside retirement was unemployed at a time when United were in dire need of an individual capable of re-organising the club from top to bottom.

Fortunate that man remained patient while the club's inexperienced board stared a gift horse in the mouth.

Fortunate that he arrives at Old Trafford with an immense appetite to succeed.

“Chelsea did not have a good result and now Jose needs a very good result,” comments one close friend. “He is extremely concentrated. I love Mourinho in these moments.”

There is desire to put many at Chelsea in their place for their failure to support his requests to improve an obviously imbalanced squad and restructure a backroom staff not fully of his own choosing after he brought the Premier League back to the club.

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Unlike Guardiola, who spent a part of last season nervously trying to find out if United would hire Mourinho, he looks forward to going head-to-head with a man he tactically and mentally bested in Spain.

He looks forward to such competition with the same vigour as he sets standards for himself and his team.

“It would be easy and even honest and pragmatic from my side to focus on the last three years,” explained Mourinho last week. “And to focus on the fact that we don’t qualify for Champions League and so on and so on and be quite pragmatic to say that let’s work and try to be back to the Champions League. Try to be back to the top four. Try to do well in the Europa League. I prefer to be more aggressive and that is to say we want to win.

“It is an aggressive approach by myself. I want everything. I want to play matches well, score goals and play young players and I don’t want to concede goals. I want the fans behind us because in the last 10 minutes we are chasing a goal or defending a result. I want everything. Of course we are not going to get everything but we want to.”

(Image: AFP/Getty)

If that ambition has remained unchanged throughout his time in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain, another has evolved. As far as Mourinho is concerned he is at Old Trafford for the long term. The contract he agreed with United in May runs for three years until 2020, and includes an option for a further season. If an even longer deal had been on the table, Mourinho would have taken it.

In much the same way as he objects to the lazy characterisations of him as a manager who does not promote young players, succeeds only through spending, or depends on defensive tactics, Mourinho does not regard himself as a short-term coach.

In 2004, he left FC Porto after claiming back-to-back Portuguese Primiera Ligas, the UEFA Cup and the Champions League; an exit that was more or less inevitable.

Leaving Internazionale for Madrid, after rolling another European Cup into an unprecedented Italian treble, was also understandable

Abramovich twice terminated Mourinho's employment at Chelsea, yet his first stay at Stamford Bridge was just seven months shorter than Guardiola's longest period in charge of one club. Oddly, the Catalan is rarely criticized for alleged short-termism.

Above all else, Mourinho is driven by a desire to win. On every occasion he has come into major conflict with an employer it has been because the club has insisted on pursuing a path that made it harder for him and his players to take trophies. If United deliver the backing Mourinho expects, expect their partnership to be long - and extremely rewarding.