Mourinho takes dig at Pogba: The duo didn’t share a fruitful relationship during the former’s third season at the club.
Manchester United parted ways with Jose Mourinho last month, replacing him with former star Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
The Portuguese manager’s third season at the club was marred with disappointing performances and off-the-field issues with his players, Paul Pogba in particular.
And now, Mourinho has broken silence over the player-manager relationships in clubs, seemingly taking a swipe at the French midfielder.
Mourinho takes dig at Pogba:
Mourinho stated that football has changed in recent times and a coach isn’t ‘powerful enough’ to deal with players who are not ‘the best professionals.’
“We are not any more in the time where the coach by himself is powerful enough to cope and have a relationship of education and sometimes confrontation with players who are not the best professionals. The coaches nowadays they need a structure.
“A club must have an owner or a president, a CEO or an executive director, a sports director or a football director, and then the manager. This is a structure that can cope with all the problems that modernity is bringing to all of us.”
Mourinho and Pogba have been vocal about their criticism for each other during the former’s time at the club. While Paul Pogba attacked Mourinho’s tactics in the mixed-zone interview, Mourinho removed him from the first-team captaincy altogether.
The situation became worse after the duo was caught arguing during a training session after a disappointing loss against Derby County in the Carabao Cup.
“So, for me a club must be very well organised to cope with these kind of situations where the manager is only the manager and not the man who is trying to keep the discipline or who is trying to educate the players,” Mourinho added.
The manager also insisted that the manager is only at the club to coach the players.
“The phrase I kept with me from Sir Alex Ferguson was, ‘the day a player is more important than the club, goodbye’. Not anymore, not anymore.
“So I think the way to do it is for the players to find a certain balance and the balance has to be created in the relationship between the players and the manager.
“The manager is there to coach them, the manager is not there to keep the discipline at any cost.
“The structure must be made, the structure must be there to protect the manager and for the players to feel that everything is in place and that they are not going to arrive into a situation where they feel more powerful than they used to be.”
