Jose Mourinho has gone into great depth on the rise of ‘player power’ and the need for clubs to implement a better structure behind the scenes. But he isn’t talking about Manchester United specifically.
Mourinho was sacked as Manchester United manager last month after a poor start to the season.
The Portuguese seemed unable to control the Old Trafford dressing room at one point, falling out with a number of different players during his two-and-a-half-year tenure.
Without talking about United in particular, he states that clubs need to help managers more in terms of their relationship with and control over the squad.
“Nowadays, a coach needs a structure and the support of clubs to manage his staff,” Mourinho told beIN SPORTS.
“It is increasingly difficult to have direct relationships with players.
“I don’t like to say that it is a problem between the coach and the player, I think it is a problem between the coach without the structure behind him, and the player.
“We are not any more in the time where the coach by himself is powerful enough to cope and to have a relation of education and sometimes confrontation with players which are not the best professionals.
“Each club must have a representative who communicates with the players, like that it will be more organised. The coach should just train, not be the one who preserves the discipline.
“The club without the structure, which creates a situation where the player is not anymore in a situation of a direct relation with the manager, but instead a relation with the structure.
“A club must have an owner or president, a CEO or director executive, a sports director or football director, and then the manager. And this is a structure that can cope with all the modernity that football brings us.
“For me the club must be very well organised to cope with these type of situations. Where the manager is only the manager and not the man that is trying keep the discipline and trying to get the players.
“One day, I think it was when Manchester United sold David Beckham to Real Madrid – I think it was that period, if it’s not I’m wrong – but the phrase that I kept with me, the biggest one in the Premier League, Sir Alex Ferguson said: ‘The day a player is more important than the club, goodbye.’
“Not any more. Not any more because there are many things behind that makes it difficult to create a situation as linear as this one. 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.
“I repeat it needs a structure to protect the coach, because it’s not for the coach to preserve the order and the discipline.”
Mourinho was criticised for naming four United players who were “lacking maturity” in November.
John Nicholson called out the Portuguese for making such sweeping statements over the modern generation of footballers, but Mourinho insists that was not his intention.
“Everything I was saying – it was not like ‘your generation was perfect and the new generation is not perfect,’” he added. “It’s just the way it is.
“When I was a kid, if my father told me to go buy a newspaper, I go immediately and the only thing I ask him is if I can keep the change.
“If today, I tell my son to go and buy the newspaper, he tells me, ‘why?’
“It’s a generational change and I don’t think it’s fair to say one was good and that those professionals were all top and the next generation are all bad boys with a difficult situation to manage. It is not true at all.
“You have to share the leadership. It can no longer be unidirectional. You need the structure.
“And when I was speaking before, I was not speaking about my experience with Manchester United, at all. I’m speaking in general.”
Great save for that non-disclosure agreement, chief.