Jose Mourinho has never really known failure before, says Jamie Carragher

There’s been some fanciful talk that, with Manchester United’s 0-2 win away to Zorya — and its confirmation of Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s belated arrival as a significant influence — Jose Mourinho might well have negotiated one of those famous ‘turning points’ so beloved of teams in, to put it at its most charitable, transition.

You would imagine though that for the long-suffering faithful, it will take more than a victory in a far-off deep freeze, against a team of which most of them would have been previously unaware, to even warm the cockles, let alone point to a brighter future.

Much more exacting tests lie in wait for United, beginning tomorrow in the Premier League when they play host to Spurs, another team showing tentative signs of getting itself back on track.