Former Manchester United manager Ron Atkinson has advised the club’s current boss, Jose Mourinho, a change of his "us against the world" leadership style is needed if he’s to succeed at Old Trafford.
The Portuguese coach has faced criticism in the wake of his side’s 3-1 loss to Watford on Sunday, the team’s third defeat in the space of eight days. Mourinho has blamed refereeing errors as a contributing factor in each loss, although Atkinson has encouraged the former Chelsea chief not to turn the club into a “personal fiefdom.”
“I have never been a huge fan of this siege mentality he brings to his clubs,” said Atkinson, promoting his upcoming book at an event near Old Trafford, per Mike Walters of the Daily Mirror. “There’s nothing wrong with being fiercely protective of your players, but that doesn’t mean you have to antagonise everybody else.” He continued:
It is a global brand and you cannot run it as your personal fiefdom. United is an expansive club, it’s a club of the people. Telling everyone that "It’s us against the world" doesn’t really wash, because United have lots of friends—they probably have more fans on the planet than anyone else.
Jose has an engaging personality and it would be a shame if he got sidetracked by siege mentality and taking on the world.
Mourinho is one of the most decorated managers of his generation, having enjoyed success with Porto, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and during two spells with Chelsea. His appointment has formerly been considered as putting the foundations in place for inevitable glories.
Yet over the past 12 months, there’s a sense the crown has slowly slipped from Mourinho’s head. Bleacher Report UK took a detailed look at the struggles he’s had as of late:
The man known as “Big Ron” in football parlance believes that while the Portuguese may lay the blame elsewhere, he’s been a huge contributor to his own slump.
“I don’t think his treatment of the club doctor, Eva Carneiro, helped him but I don’t think it was the root cause of Chelsea’s collapse,” he said in his book, The Manager, per Walters. “When they won the title, Chelsea limped rather than stormed over the line, and when Mourinho spent money in the summer of 2015 it was on footballers who disappeared without trace.”
Even so, Mourinho has a big job on his hands at Old Trafford, as he seeks to restore this juggernaut of the game back to the summit of English football.
One of the main obstacles preventing that process is likely to be local rivals Manchester City, who have taken to life superbly under the guidance of their new manager and Mourinho’s long-term rival, Pep Guardiola. Indeed, it was the blue side of Manchester that recently landed a telling blow, besting United 2-1 in the derby.
Atkinson praised the men in sky blue but suggested Mourinho could have done more on the day to get a positive result.
“I was surprised by the way United played in the derby,” he told Walters. “All credit to City, who look phenomenal, but I thought Jose would have set up his team to play higher up the pitch. It would have been an eye-opener for him to see the way City went about it, with David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne finding pockets of space.”
City appear to be much further along in their development than the Red Devils at this juncture, although Guardiola walked into a football club that already had strong structures in place to build upon. At United, mantras seemed to have been muddled by Louis van Gaal’s two-year stint in charge.
Atkinson feels the way in which the Dutchman set up his sides during his tenure robbed United of their aura, per Walters: “I don’t know whether he was following a template that worked for him in Germany or Holland, where he might have worn teams down and then picked them off, but in England you expect an early onslaught at United, and if it doesn’t come, you lose the fear factor.”
Atkinson knows the pressures that come with being a United boss, having spent five years in the hot seat and delivering two FA Cup wins in the process. He was eventually dismissed and replaced by legendary boss Sir Alex Ferguson in 1986.