Mourinho signed off on the tour. He knew perfectly well what he was signing up for, and honestly, it's not like the other ICC teams weren't hit by the WC. Real, Bayern, Barcelona, Spurs, City, Tottenham, PSG ... all those teams are overseas right now and all of them are missing key players. Mourinho is trying his usual "everyone against us" crap, exemplified by his pathetic whining about having to play the season opener one day ahead of the others.
Some of his comments were downright pathetic. "I wouldn't pay to watch that squad" and "this is not even 30% of my squad" is a terrible way of handling your youngsters. I mean yeah, we all know that the likes of Tahith Chong and Mason Greenwood won't be part of the senior squad this year, duh. But those are teenagers who experience their first preseason tour and who are doing their best, those comments are simply unnecessary.
His chicken fight with Woodward is amazing too. I mean, we are talking about a manager who has been at the club for 2 years and has been allowed to spend around 300m NET during that time, so any suggestions that he hasn't been backed by the board are complete nonsense. And a closer look at those players isn't all that pretty, either. Ibrahimovic and Mkhitaryan are already gone, Pogba is unhappy, Bailly fell out of favour last season for some reason, Lindelöf has been a passenger, Alexis hasn't shown enough. That leaves Lukaku and Matic. Hardly an impressive outcome, so can you really blame the board for being a bit reluctant? Mourinho has signed two CBs already and is pressing hard for a third one, it's hard not to feel that he's just burning money.
The meltdown is coming, all the signs are there. Some players are unhappy, but he I don't think he has lost the room ... yet. But it will happen. Sadly, as the Moyes and LVG fiascos proved, they'll not sack him quickly enough, but wait until it's too late to salvage the season.
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