{"id":33431,"date":"2026-08-10T13:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/jose-mourinho-how-manchester-united-missed-out-on-first-choice-to-replace-sir-alex-ferguson\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T13:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:17:09","slug":"jose-mourinho-how-manchester-united-missed-out-on-first-choice-to-replace-sir-alex-ferguson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/jose-mourinho-how-manchester-united-missed-out-on-first-choice-to-replace-sir-alex-ferguson\/","title":{"rendered":"Jose Mourinho: How Manchester United missed out on first choice to replace Sir Alex Ferguson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is felt now that Mourinho would have had a greater impact if he had directly followed Ferguson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For a start, his personality suggested he would have taken on the task of succeeding the Scot by believing he could do better.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Whereas under Moyes, there was hesitation in the transfer market, it is hard to imagine Mourinho being similarly reluctant to execute deals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Thiago Alcantara&#8217;s agreed move from Barcelona would have been completed, sources stress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">United would also have avoided the mess they got into around Marouane Fellaini \u2013 who moved from Everton for \u00a327.5m on deadline day, but only after the club had missed out on a lower release fee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fellaini, it is claimed, simply would not have been signed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mourinho went so far as giving United his view on a number of players, including Italy midfielder Daniele de Rossi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Not only it is safe to assume Mourinho would have signed players, the feeling is he would also have got more from the experienced ones he was inheriting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is generally accepted now that no-one could have extracted more from Ferguson&#8217;s final title-winning squad than the Scot, and they significantly overperformed. But the fall off, to seventh, was dramatic and unexpected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Even the players themselves have struggled to identify specific reasons. The feeling remains that Mourinho&#8217;s presence would have pushed them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With clarity and expression, Ferguson uses the documentary to recount Mourinho&#8217;s tears as he explained why he could not join.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was a huge blow to Manchester United. Arguably, they are still to fully recover.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/cd7ljn5rej4o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is felt now that Mourinho would have had a greater impact if he had directly followed Ferguson. For a start, his personality suggested he would have taken on the task of succeeding the Scot by believing he could do better. Whereas under Moyes, there was hesitation in the transfer market, it is hard to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33433,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33431\/revisions\/33433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}