TERRACE TALK: Man United - Fergie wouldn’t have put up with Ed Woodward’s antics

How good to see you again, dear reader. Here begins my 20th season at the Examiner — yes, we are getting old, though you wear it well — and it’s surely time for me to get some of that ‘season syndrome’ action I keep hearing about.

You will have deduced that I am, of course, expressing exasperation over the so-called Jose Mourinho Third Season Syndrome, about which hacks started writing before the campaign had even begun, and which we can now consider to be in full swing, following yesterday’s farce at lowly Brighton and last week’s Pogba brouhaha.

Scoring an injury-time match-saver in a ‘six-goal thriller’ after being two down early doors would have been the cause for a few happy hour pints. But such was the dreadful United play on display, and the abysmal chance-free second half, that many Reds will have been reaching for the whiskey glass of sorrows instead.

Yesterday’s desperate stumbling was not, perhaps, a huge surprise to most. Many independent observers thought United had rather stunk the place out last week too, albeit while picking up three points against Leicester.

We Reds tried to adopt a jaunty hat-angle and cheerful tone during the week that followed, as befitting a legion looking forward to a south coast sunshine trip, but it was hard going, given the week’s background soundtrack.

Which wasn’t so much ‘The Sun Has Got His Hat On’, but, thanks to Mourinho and Pogba, ‘Rainy Days And Mondays’. Frankly, under José’s United at the moment, every day feels like Monday.

The alleged Mourinho-Pogba spat had supposedly followed the latter’s cryptic yet unmistakably negative remarks post-Leicester, at a time when the Spanish transfer window is still open. No-one, least of all Mourinho, could be blamed for drawing Barcelonian conclusions.

My understanding from Mourinhesque Lisbon sources is that some sort of meeting between boss and captain did take place, and was “testy”, though not explosive or angry. Certainly, Mourinho’s claims last Friday that he had “never been happier” with the player drew open guffaws from most fans and OT hacks I know.

Besides, the rather more important key question was left unanswered: How happy with the boss is the player?! Pogba’s display at Brighton, described to me as “disgraceful” by one editorial old hand, will now surely bring the whole matter back onto the agenda, because if that’s a happy player fully committed to the cause, then he’s an even better actor than he is a footballer.

Behind all this looms an even more vital issue, of the Mourinho/Woodward relationship. The saga of United’s unfulfilling transfer window unfolded with a quite shocking and unusual transparency.

None of the participants bothered to hide the truth; José, once our long-term club manager, is now really only a short-term head coach.

It was Woodward who used the damning phrase “short-term” in his secret press briefing; it was José who glumly voiced his newly diminished de facto job title. A director of football will soon be inbound, and Mourinho (or his successor) will then face two levels of decision-making second-guessing.

Will he really put up with both Ed and a DoF muddying the transfer market waters? Fergie wouldn’t have.

Also, is Ed trying to force José to quit? If so, then his unforced and unnecessary decision to offer José a lucrative new contract just seven months ago looks even less well-advised than it did back then.

What we need now is a nice soft landing to get us past this bumpy start. Who’s up next? Ah: Spurs. Gulp.

Y’know, José did utter at least one likely truth last week: “This is going to be a hard season...”