José Mourinho wants to be Manchester United manager for “15 years”, though he admits the pressures of the job would make such a lengthy tenure at Old Trafford difficult.

The Portuguese is in his second term in charge, having led the club to Capital One Cup and Europa League successes in his first. United are in the America on a summer tour ahead of a campaign in which the manager has to ensure they challenge for a 21st domestic championship after only finishing sixth last year.

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The longest Mourinho has stayed at a club was during his first tenure at Chelsea, when he entered a fourth season at the helm in 2007-08. But he plans to stay far longer at United.

“I am ready for this,” Mourinho told ESPN. “I am ready for the next 15, I would say. Here? Yes, why not? I have to admit that it is very difficult because of the pressure around our jobs, everybody putting pressure on managers and things that people say – that we have to win – but in reality only one can win and every year it is getting more difficult.

“But what I try to do in the club is show that my work goes further than the football results, that it goes to areas that people don’t think of as a manager’s job. In my vision, my job is much more than what I do on the pitch and the results that my team gets at the weekend.”

Sir Alex Ferguson was in charge from November 1986 until May 2013, when he retired. “This club, for so many years, was Sir Alex,” Mourinho said. “People got used to it – people understood the great consequences of that stability. After David [Moyes] and Mr [Louis] van Gaal, I come to my second year and hopefully I can stay and give that stability that the club wants. I will try, but again, I will have to try to deserve that, but that’s what I try every day that I work.”

Mourinho is, though, conscious of how perilous management can be after being sacked by Chelsea in December 2015, having claimed the title the previous campaign. “You have huge success in one year, the next year you don’t have success and you are out,” he said. “It happened to me at Chelsea, it happened to [Claudio] Ranieri at Leicester [last season], it will happen to many others. Nowadays, people look much more on the short-term.

“I think Sir Alex’s career is unique. I don’t think it is possible to emulate. Nobody is going to be in the same club for so many years, be in the same league for so many years. I think [Arsène] Wenger [at Arsenal] will be the last with a similar story in terms of staying at a club for so many years, but what I try to do in modern football nowadays is to try to deserve to stay in the club, because in this moment, it is about success. You have success, you stay in the club. You don’t have success, you don’t stay.”