Tottenham loss drives wedge between Mourinho and key Manchester United attacker
Manchester United’s 3-0 loss to Tottenham could have a big impact on the squad’s future. One key attacker is fed up with Jose Mourinho.
It’s pretty unlikely that including Anthony Martial would have drastically changed Manchester United’s performance on Monday, but Jose Mourinho’s decision to leave him out of the squad could come back to haunt him. It’s clear there is a severe disconnect between Martial and his manager.
In fairness, this isn’t a new conflict. Mourinho and Martial have been battling at Old Trafford for months. It’s pretty obvious that the attacker is not in his manager’s long-term plans. Then again there’s no assurance that Mourinho has a long-term future at United.
No matter what, reports from France insist that Martial was mystified by his omission from the match day squad against Spurs. He didn’t necessarily expect to get the start, but being replaced by Alexis Sanchez on the bench was evidently more than he could handle.
The real question now is whether or not Martial will start to agitate for a move away from the club in January. He has less than two years remaining on his current deal and he’s hinted before that he’s willing to let his contract run down under a year to engineer a move away from Mourinho. It’s highly unlikely his situation is going to improve anytime in the near future.
That is, unless, Martial and other players start to work behind the scenes to get Mourinho axed. It wouldn’t be the first time that sort of thing has happened to The Special One in the Premier League. Cesc Fabregas led a revolt of sorts at Chelsea to get Mourinho the sack. Martial doesn’t have that kind of influence at United, but he could start to get in the ear of players whose voices are loud enough to get the attention of Ed Woodward and company.
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The simple truth is here that Mourinho’s place on top of the mountain at Manchester United is getting more and more tenuous as the losses pile up. Right now, Martial is being portrayed as an unruly player, but he could look like the voice of reason if things keep going wrong at Old Trafford. Mourinho should be doing everything he can to improve his relationship with Martial at the moment, but we all know that isn’t going to happen. He’s entirely too prideful to extend an olive branch to the French attacker.