Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher reckons that Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho will struggle to find a job with another elite club if he is sacked from his position at Old Trafford.
Mourinho is one of the most successful coaches of the modern era and his CV glistens with top-level silverware. However, the Portuguese coach has come in for some stinging criticism recently for his media outbursts, man-management style, and pragmatic tactical approach.
The 55-year-old has come under so much pressure that he is one of the favourites with the Bookies to win the dreaded Premier League sack race and Carragher reckons that if that happens for the first time in Mourinho’s career he will not have a line of top clubs queuing up to make him their manager.
“Jose Mourinho is not just fighting to prove he is the man who can deliver the Premier League title at Manchester United. He is in the midst of a fight to preserve his position as a top level, Champions League competing manager,’ Carragher wrote in the Telegraph.
“If Mourinho cannot reverse the negative energy currently engulfing Old Trafford, where will he go next? There has always been a career path with Mourinho. He fulfilled his ambition to become the first manager to win the title in England, Spain and Italy and if a job has run its course at one major club there is usually a queue of European giants desperate to hire him.
“Whenever he has previously become embroiled in political battles with boardrooms, although he took a hit short-term, long-term he still ended up winning.
“Fall out with Chelsea at the end of his first spell at Stamford Bridge? No problem. Inter Milan are on the phone, ready to invest to dominate in Italy and win the Champions League.
“Real Madrid had enough? Fine, Chelsea misses you and so does the Premier League.
“Chelsea no longer wants you around? It will be okay because Ed Woodward wants a meeting.
“But if Mourinho leaves United at some stage this season – and I do believe they will have a new coach a year from now – what big job can he expect next? Of course he will still be one of the world’s most esteemed and coveted coaches, but his next club position would have to be in the tier just below the current elite. He would have to go somewhere seeking to rebuild, trying to catch-up, rather than one where the foundations are in place and he can target the world’s most expensive players.
“No other team in the Premier League’s top six would pursue him. Real Madrid and Barcelona are no longer realistic options, nor Juventus. I don’t believe PSG would take him at the moment.
“It would be a different profile of role, back to the start of his career when he was in Portugal. In some respects, it would be exciting to see Jose in that kind of environment again, where I believe he would show everyone how good he is. He has won trophies wherever he has been and there is no reason to presume that will stop. Since his return to England, he has won one Premier League, two domestic cups, a European trophy, finished second in the league and reached another major final.
“Despite that, his reputation will be scarred and choices limited if the situation does not change soon at United.
“That is why I see the next few months as the most challenging of his career. For all the success, one task has eluded him. He has never managed to emerge unscathed from a slump.”
