Things are going from bad to worse for Jose Mourinho and Manchester United. It looks like the Portuguese boss is finally ready to take action and shape the Red Devils squad in his own image.
Manchester United haven’t won a game in four in the Premier League, a sequence of results that has left the club 8th in the league table. To add insult to injury, the Red Devils lost 2-1 to Fenerbahce in the Europa League, leaving them with a sizeable task of qualifying from the group stages. It goes without saying that Jose Mourinho’s start as the Manchester United manager has been far from the bed of roses the club’s fans had hoped for.
Post the latest debacle in Turkey, Mourinho had a few choice words for his players as he slammed the team’s performance on Thursday night. With fallouts from the recent results coming in plentiful, the United manager has now identified the extensive changes he needs to make to his squad in the next two windows.
As reported by James Ducker of The Telegraph, Jose Mourinho will bring down the axe on a minimum of eight players in order to facilitate a quick transition of his squad.
Giving an account on the entire situation, Ducker said in his report: “Mourinho believes he has taken on a bigger job at Old Trafford than he originally thought and is ready to make extensive changes to the squad next year.
“If there is a possibility of doing business in the January transfer window, both in terms of incomings and outgoings, the Portuguese will do so, although the bulk of United’s activity will take place next summer.”
At the forefront of the said outgoings are defenders Marcos Rojo, Matteo Darmian and Phil Jones. While Phil Jones has failed to live up to his promise by missing large parts of the recent season to injuries, Darmian seems to be out of favour with the United boss. In midfield, the likes of Bastian Schweinsteiger, Morgan Schneiderlin, Michael Carrick, Memphis Depay and Ashley Young, all of whom don’t feature in Mourinho’s plans prominently, will be allowed to leave over the next two windows.
Schweinsteiger, who only made a return to first-team training this week after an enforced two-month exile, might be the first to leave. Depay may leave in the winter transfer window too, albeit on a loan deal, as several clubs are said to be tracking the Dutch winger.
Jose Mourinho clearly isn’t completely happy with the squad he has at his disposal. Whether or not another squad overhaul is the answer to United’s recent troubles remains to be seen. For now, he must make do with the current set of players and aim to turn the tide as rivals Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur threaten to create too big a ground to make up.
