Jose Mourinho and Manchester United are, apparently, in the midst of a terrifying crisis, and far worse than that, they are suffering from Mourinho’s third-season syndrome, and far worse than that, they are also afflicted by dressing room distress as senior players lose their cool over their treatment. After 10 games, we know exactly what has gone wrong, and also where all the distressing events have already happened under Mourinho. Or perhaps, people are looking to past patterns for corroboration and matching it to past events. It is a natural human instinct, but it is not the necessarily correct way to extrapolate and predict the future.



There are problems with players not playing through pain. There is one player who he managed previously, who was rumoured to have fallen out with Mourinho over his reluctance to undergo blood-spinning treatment. The player was concerned about the effects it may have on his health, and Mourinho, the story goes, was annoyed that it meant that the recovery of the player - often injured at this point of his career - would be obstructive to the team’s success.

After the win against Swansea City, Luke Shaw and Chris Smalling were mentioned as players who had let down the side, with Mourinho appearing to imply that they were unwilling to wince through injuries in order to serve their side. Now, there are two ways of looking at this. For one, Roy Keane has previously mentioned that he now regrets playing with injuries that Ruud van Nistelrooy might have heeded. Van Nistelrooy was a success well into his mid-thirties. Keane was not, as he struggled with a longstanding hip problem.

The other, more compelling way to look at this, is that he has decided that Shaw and Smalling simply are not good enough for the side. Mourinho didn’t want Shaw at Chelsea, and he had his fitness questioned while under Louis van Gaal. A Twitter account that seems to be run by Shaw’s brother insulted Marcos Rojo when the defender was preferred to Shaw. Simply put, it doesn’t appear that Shaw is worth the hassle.

On an unrelated note, a young Manchester United fan is supposed to be such a waste of space that he pays his hangers-on £100 a time to punch them in the arm. It is no wonder that Mourinho has decided that Shaw, and players like him who might be cosseted by their entourage, isn’t going to apply himself sufficiently throughout his career. With Smalling unable to think on the pitch, he needs to be excluded from the club as soon as a suitable replacement can be found. There may not be a better time for Mourinho to set a marker for what he expects after a 3-1 victory, and the issue fitness, and thus commitment, may be handy mcguffin. It is also worth noting that Paul Pogba is in the press today confirming he has been playing with an injury - and Pogba is one of the best players in the world.

There have also been allegations that senior figures at United are nonplussed by Mourinho’s hands-off approach to training at Carrington. There are several senior figures at United, such as Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick, who were responsible for asking Van Gaal to change his training practises last season. Now, they are no longer first-choice players in the squad. We should remember that Alex Ferguson was rarely involved with training for most of his later years, and was content to delegate much of the work that other managers focus on. It seemed to do OK for him, and there were no senior players at United complaining about his intermittent presence on the training ground - it is almost as if those who complain now are happy to suggest all kinds of problems with no self-awareness and, possibly, credibility.

It is not known who are the senior players who are complaining to the press at the moment, but perhaps that will become clearer as the less favoured players start to leave the club over the next two transfer windows, and scores are settled in the press.

On the other hand, there are stories that the squad, largely, remain enamoured with their new coach. Of course, after the misery of Van Gaal, Mourinho will still be seen as light relief, but Mourinho has plenty of players over the last decade who would be happy to spill blood - theirs as much as others’ - for him. It appears there is a majority of players who are happy to follow Mourinho and no longer waste their careers, and those who would prefer to whinge and moan via the papers.

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