Jose Mourinho's job is to beat local rivals Manchester City, not entertain the footballing world

  • If Jose Mourinho wants to park the bus at Old Trafford then good luck to him
  • Mourinho is a smart manager and will not play into the hands of Pep Guardiola
  • England's players will not be able to use the 'tired' excuse against Belgium 
  • Delhi, in its present polluted state, isn't fit to host major sporting events  
  • Gary Lineker is wrong to assume that Gianni Infantino is different to Sepp Blatter 

This time, it is different. If Jose Mourinho chooses to park a bus against Manchester City on Sunday, even at Old Trafford, then good luck to him. Let no one argue the onus is on Manchester United to entertain the watching world.

If he wants to take City on in an open, cavalier, technical game he will in all likelihood lose. He has to be smarter than that. He is smarter than that.

Mourinho was chippy for several weeks after the goalless draw with Liverpool on October 14, because Manchester United's negative approach to the game was criticised. It cost his team significant early season momentum, not least when they lost at Huddersfield the next weekend.

Jose Mourinho would not be wrong if he was to park the bus against Manchester City

Jose Mourinho would not be wrong if he was to park the bus against Manchester City

Pep Guardiola's City have been an unstoppable force in the Premier League this season 

Pep Guardiola's City have been an unstoppable force in the Premier League this season 

Yet the disappointment was felt because they were better than that. They were better than Liverpool and have continued to prove it since. Six points separate them in the table; United have conceded 10 fewer goals and scored two more, too. It was a mistake to consider them equals. City are unlikely to do it when they visit Anfield on January 14.

Yet while it may pain United supporters to admit this, City cannot simply be taken on in a free-flowing game. Not when standing on the brink of history. Not when now capable of delivering Pep Guardiola's artistic vision. The hard-fought win over West Ham on Sunday was their 13th straight in the league, one more and they will beat the Premier League record for consecutive victories in a season. United are good, but they are not in a position to repel that form on instinct.

Fortunately, one imagines Mourinho knows this. Beating City will require strategy — and Mourinho never lets ego or his personal reputation get in the way of a damn good plan. Faced with Ajax in the Europa League final last season, he did not indulge the idea that a club with the history of United should match them pass for precious pass. He looked at his defence, recognised its limitations and went long, denying Ajax the ball.

City attacking midfielder David Silva scored the winning goal against West Ham on Sunday

City attacking midfielder David Silva scored the winning goal against West Ham on Sunday

At the end, he was as happy with his victory as if he had played Ajax off the park — which, in a way, he had. He held a celebratory finger aloft. Number one, he indicated to anyone watching. Number one.

That is his greatness. He may sulk and moan and act hurt, but deep down he doesn't really care what you think. If he wants to go to Anfield next season and bore the pants off everybody again, he will. If he thinks a point at Liverpool is a good result, he'll take it, every year.

He changed strategy mid-season to win his third title at Chelsea, became cagey where his team had previously been expansive. His tactics to eliminate Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final with Inter Milan in 2010 varied wildly tie to tie. It is a myth that Mourinho is negative or one-dimensional. He is not afraid to play — as his free-scoring title with Real Madrid proved — but he is not afraid to stop playing, either.

David Moyes, the West Ham manager, put 10 men behind the ball and hit City solely on the counter-attack on Sunday and it nearly worked. United have considerably better players than West Ham. And if Mourinho thinks that is the way to go, he will be equally pragmatic without remorse. Not because he's arrogant, but because he isn't. An arrogant man would be too proud to consider City as superiors in the most aesthetically pleasing elements of the game.

David Moyes tried to put his West Ham side behind the ball but that only worked for so long 

David Moyes tried to put his West Ham side behind the ball but that only worked for so long 

Mourinho doesn't care. He knows his team have other strengths. Less attractive to the eye, perhaps, but potentially highly effective. And he'll play to them, even if the purists sigh.

But don't knock it. English football, particularly the Premier League this seson, needs Mourinho. It needs a manager who will spend the week coaching City's downfall, no matter how dark the stratagem.

Liverpool were open at City and went down by five; Chelsea couldn't live with them, even at Stamford Bridge; the best team won the day they beat Arsenal, no matter Arsene Wenger's complaints. The last hope of derailing Guardiola's procession is that Mourinho might have City's measure at Old Trafford.

It will be devilishly difficult without Paul Pogba, of course, whose influence on United is ever more obvious. Yet City have kept one clean sheet in the league since beating Burnley 3-0 on October 21. And if West Brom, Arsenal, Huddersfield, Southampton and West Ham can score against them, Mourinho will certainly feel his team have chances; and once ahead, a better hope of holding on to win, too.

Paul Pogba won't be available for the Manchester derby after he was sent off against Arsenal

Paul Pogba won't be available for the Manchester derby after he was sent off against Arsenal

His biggest problem is that a draw is no good. Merely preventing City's eight-point lead from extending to double figures is not enough for United. They have to make inroads into that margin, strike a blow against City's feeling of invincibility, the belief that Guardiola is forging a blue take on Ferguson's United, creating a team who play the best football and always win, however late.

Mourinho has to cause doubt, insecurity, uncertainty, plant a tiny seed of fear. For those who like their political machinations red in tooth and claw, he has to inform City that winter is coming. You know nothing, Pep Guardiola.

What he cannot do is entertain the Einsteins, or those who would mark football like figure skating. United are better than Liverpool and should have set out that day to prove it. They are not better than City, but this does not mean they cannot win.

And Mourinho knows that. In fact, he'll have been thinking of little else all season.

 

Belgians to expose 'tired' excuse 

In Belgium's last competitive match, against Cyprus, six of the starting line-up played in the Premier League, plus two more came off the bench. It would have been more had the game meant anything.

So England's pairing with Roberto Martinez's team at the World Cup is interesting.

In previous competitions, the exhaustion of England's players after a gruelling Premier League season is often advanced as mitigation for under-performance. Here it can be no excuse if Belgium are hitting their straps.

Eden Hazard, Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne — in fact, almost all of Belgium's key players should be equally fatigued. If they are not, then there must be another reason.

Sven Goran Eriksson always complained his players were tired come tournament time, yet the 2002 World Cup final was the 62nd game of the season for Liverpool and Germany midfielder Dietmar Hamann, and he seemed to be breathing quite normally. Mesut Ozil of Arsenal appeared to be at no disadvantage entering extra time in the World Cup final in 2014, too — his 53rd game of the season.

Kevin De Bruyne will no doubt play an integral role for Belgium at next year's World Cup

Kevin De Bruyne will no doubt play an integral role for Belgium at next year's World Cup

 

Smelly Delhi not fit to host elite sport 

The sight of Sri Lanka's cricketers fielding in face masks in Delhi on Sunday should be a wake-up call for sport's administrators. The Indian city, in its present polluted state, is not a fit host for major sports events.

Domestic competitions, from Test matches to the Indian Premier League, have no option but to play there. Yet in recent years the desire to exploit the Indian market has taken an increasing number of major international events to Delhi: the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the Cricket World Cup, Formula One, FIFA's Under 17 World Cup, the Indian Open golf.

Many events are planned, including another Cricket World Cup. And Delhi is far from the only Indian city with pollution problems.

Delhi, in its present polluted state, is not a fit location to be hosting major sporting events

Delhi, in its present polluted state, is not a fit location to be hosting major sporting events

What happens if the smog descends again? At the weekend, some of the Sri Lankans fled the field to vomit and the umpires wisely heeded their distress and abandoned play.

It is harder to make that call while managing a tight tournament schedule. Would the instruction have come to play on if it risked upsetting the dynamic of an entire competition? It is time administrators put the well-being of the players before money.

Sport cannot continue returning to regions that do not meet the most basic standards for athlete welfare. If that means Delhi, and other parts, must clean up their act before hosting again, so be it.

 

Lineker is kidding himself if he puts faith in Infantino 

Gary Lineker says he would not have hosted FIFA's World Cup draw had Sepp Blatter still been president. He thinks Gianni Infantino is different. Funny — he seemed more intelligent than that. Infantino is FIFA's Mikhail Gorbachev. 

But not the Gorbachev of popular imagination, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, dismantler of the Soviet Union. He's the Gorbachev who, before he did that, spent four decades rising through the Communist Party, having joined it at Moscow State University during the time of Stalin.

He's the Gorbachev who was promoted to First Secretary of the Stavropol City Komsomol Committee in 1956, in the era of Nikita Khrushchev, and became Head of the Department of Party Organs in the Stavropol Agricultural Kraikom in 1963. He's the Gorbachev who under Leonid Brezhnev became a Representative of the Supreme Soviet in 1974 and joined the Politburo in 1979.

Former England striker Gary Lineker hosted the 2018 World Cup draw in Russia on Friday

Former England striker Gary Lineker hosted the 2018 World Cup draw in Russia on Friday

Now, to earn this series of promotions and endorsements, how often do you think Gorbachev stuck his hand up for perestroika (restructuring), glasnost (openness) and demokratizatsiya (democratisation)? Not much, one imagines. A cynic might think that when the Politburo were discussing sending the army in, Comrade Gorbachev either concurred, or said nothing. 

And then, he got into power, in changing times, and did what was necessary to avoid economic catastrophe. It makes him a smart politician, but perhaps not quite the reforming angel he is painted. And it's the same with Infantino. He walked football's corridors of power at a time we now know the game was bent, rubbed shoulders with men we now know were crooks and unless he was deaf or stupid must have heard gossip about topics that are now subject to criminal proceedings. 

And yet his professional advancement continued. How often in that time do you think he spoke out about reform, corruption and corporate greed? His biggest ideas involve expanding tournaments to win votes and delivering more power and wealth to the most powerful and wealthy. 

Vitaly Mutko (third from left) and Gianni Infantino (third from right) at the draw on Friday

Vitaly Mutko (third from left) and Gianni Infantino (third from right) at the draw on Friday

A country that ran a state-subsidised doping programme and will be banned from two Olympics will host the first World Cup of his presidency; and one with a dismal human rights record, terrorist pals and a seemingly bottomless pit of corrupt cash hand-outs will host his second. 

He could have addressed that, but chose not to. Asked about Russian doping, which has been subject to one of the most comprehensive investigations ever undertaken in sport, with whistle-blowers in witness protection programmes and thousands of pages of evidence, Infantino replied that it was speculation. 

'Do not try to paint with a dark paint everything that comes from the east, from Russia or the Arab world,' he said, self-servingly, as if tales of Qatari corruption and Russian cheating were the work of a racist agenda, which FIFA saw through, nobly. And this is the man whose image Lineker burnished in Moscow. Infantino isn't Blatter, but he was never anti-Blatter, either. And that makes him, and his lickspittles, almost as bad.

 

Farhad Moshiri, Everton owner, says Sam Allardyce is the most under-rated manager in the Premier League. Not by Sam Allardyce, he's not.

Sam Allardyce took charge of first match as Everton boss against Huddersfield and won 2-0

Sam Allardyce took charge of first match as Everton boss against Huddersfield and won 2-0

 

Why do we do this? The Football Association have already given Gareth Southgate their backing — they've made him England's manager. Why, then, does chief executive Martin Glenn feel it necessary to talk of Southgate managing England beyond the length of his current contract, to the World Cup in Qatar in 2022?

'We're confident Gareth can take us through the next few tournaments,' Glenn said. 'We want to build for the long term.' He spoke of age group successes at Under 17 and Under 20 level and of picking players who can make an impact in Russia — but also at the next World Cup, too.

And a lot that has happened under Southgate shows promise. Yet England have a relatively straightforward World Cup group, including Tunisia and Panama. If Southgate cannot emerge from that, is he then the person to mould the brightest generation of young players for more than a decade? Glenn doesn't have to set targets and issue ultimatums, because Southgate has a contract until 2020, but he doesn't have to hand out free passes either.

Results are important and if Southgate fails to get out of the group, as Roy Hodgson did in 2014, it will make his tenure difficult. So say nothing. Let events unfold. He has qualified comfortably; he has been bold in his selections.

He doesn't need a vote of confidence; or to be told that there is a bigger picture than beating Panama. There isn't. If results didn't matter, there would be no World Cup finals. 

FA chairman Martin Glenn will stick with Southgate even if England lose every group match

FA chairman Martin Glenn will stick with Southgate even if England lose every group match

 

Hull thought they would be getting a bargain in Leonid Slutsky.

A Russian manager with a hotline to Roman Abramovich who could guarantee an intake of cheap Chelsea loans. Instead, League One beckons, with Hull two places off relegation.

It was the same with Avram Grant. Clubs thought they were investing in Grant's good contacts but bought only trouble instead.

If Slutsky was a genius he would have been at Stamford Bridge and well beyond Hull's grasp.

 

Arthur Melo, 21-year-old architect of Gremio's Copa Libertadores win, is in the doghouse for posing in a Barcelona shirt. Gremio wear arguably the greatest strip in football — a tricolour stripe of pale blue, black and white. Sartorially, at least, why would anyone want to wear anything else? 

Gremio star Arthur was pictured in a Barcelona shirt alongside club representative Andre Cury

Gremio star Arthur was pictured in a Barcelona shirt alongside club representative Andre Cury

Arthur Melo, the 21-year-old from Gremio, is a target for Spanish giants Barcelona

Arthur Melo, the 21-year-old from Gremio, is a target for Spanish giants Barcelona