Stop and then start, and then stop, and then start.
Jose Mourinho’s infant reign at Old Trafford juts and stalls like a learner driver with severe cramp. Each step forward is quickly followed by a timid shimmy back, as the manager grows frustrated with himself, his players and nearby liquid containers.
Professional and amateur observers alike review and conclude after every game with indecent haste. It is two parts knee-jerk assessment, and one part frustration at the lack of convenient ‘narrative’. Plus these late goals play havoc with deadlines.
We all judge, praise and castigate in real-time, like guardian angels frantically scribbling down deeds and sins. And it is all of some influence too. Enough hot takes and down-turned thumbs can help seal fates – just ask the Romans.
But sometimes neither one, two or indeed five things can be learnt from an isolated 90 minutes of football. It is akin to a new boss sitting by your desk – with his pals – and pointing out errors in your work for every hour of your probation.
Not that your proficiency at Excel and deadly macro game is a great comparison. As good as it may be, you don’t get millions of insanely invested people hanging on your every cell. Football is the global obsession and thus we obsess, constantly.
Of course no one club attracts more attention than Manchester United. They are the Jabba The Hutt-esque swollen slug of the game, dominating sports pages, business pages, and even bleeding into the murky waters of the front page splash.
Every victory is painted as a much-awaited – or worryingly ominous – return to permanent form; each loss or dreary draw is evidence that the club are as doomed as the black friend in a slasher movie. Nothing can mean nothing much.
The problem with judging everything on such a macro level is that the bigger picture can become an irrelevance. Living solely in the moment shows any progress to be a jagged terrain, rather than a greater, far more gradual incline.
Jose Mourinho’s short reign has been particularly craggy. Every time the fans feel the slightest sense of elation, they are quickly slammed back down on their bruised arses. And there’s no shortage of banterbus onlookers ready to mock.
Jose is the inevitable punchline. Some of the criticism may be unfair and premature, but when you’ve dished out as much as he has over the years, you’ve got it coming. Never has a fall from grace been so unanimously and joyfully relished.
The immediate sense is that United hired something of a spent force. His dark materials are dated now and the game has moved on. Mourinho’s normal pattern of boom and then bust has been crudely concertina’d – without the boom bit.
But as maddening as the current snake and ladder form may be, there are granular improvements that are apparent if you look hard enough. And by hard, we mean straining to look into the imaginary middle-distance as with a magic eye puzzle.
Under Louis van Gaal, United became a hollow, unthinking mound of nothingness. The players were micro-managed to within an inch of their sanity and forbidden to act on natural impulse. They were fixed parts, recycling the ball as instructed.
Death by a thousand passes was exactly that – except the victims were both teams and everyone in attendance. Van Gaal was the trash-talking boxer who spents the whole bout in sluggish embrace – and then raises his hands in victory afterwards.
On the surface, nothing much has changed under Mourinho. Goalscoring remains a chore, whilst results have not improved. This despite a number of coslty recruits in the summer. Anyone rival not ripping the piss is a traitor to themselves.
That said, United fans are not backing Jose purely out of blind faith. Benefit of the doubt and standard patience play a part – as they should – but it is a very different side they are watching now, albeit not a particularly successful one yet.
Under David Moyes, the James line, ‘If I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor’ was prevalent amongst the United support. Under Van Gaal, the feeling more readily mirrored the lyric: ‘I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel.’
Progress under Mourinho may be pretty painful at present, but that is far preferable to nothing. He may be behind schedule, but United are looking like United more and more often – except of course when they are very dismally not.
It’s a ridiculous metric granted, but the number of minutes of good and entertaining football during each game is increasing over time. ‘Playing well in patches’ may be the ultimate backhanded insult to both manager and club, but it’s a start.
The defence looks almost sold; the forwards are on the verge of clicking; if my auntie was anatomically different, she’d be my uncle. The point being that old habits are very slowly being unlearned, and a new, more dynamic style is being formed.
Mourinho is not Aslan. It’s not a case of him simply breathing life into frozen figures and making them footballers again. But the likes of Juan Mata, Antonio Valencia and particularly Ander Herrera are relocating their respective mojos.
Zlatan may be infuriatingly profligate in front of goal, but some of his build-up play and actual playmaking is bordering on sublime. As for Paul Pogba, his issue was always bedding into his new surrounds and he is starting to settle in.
There are a number of questions marks at present: Can Mourinho get the best out of the immensely gifted Anthony Martial? Or the bull-like Luke Shaw? Is the situation regarding Henrikh Mkhitaryan now resolved, or will it go a bit Kawaga?
All this remains to be seen, but it is important to remember that the manager has only been in situ for four months. It’s still not his squad, but rather a largely messy amalgam of Moyesian and Van Gaalish visions – and that’s no ideal basis for anything.
As unbearable and truculent as Mourinho often is, he deserves time and patience. United are stuttering for sure, but they’re on the right track. Depending on the result previous to reading this, that statement will seem more or less ridiculous.
