[Football] FA Cup Final

Guinness Boy said:

Obviously it's only one person but a mate of mine is a massive Red. He had a huge rant on his Facebook yesterday, culminating in this gem:

"Moureen, please stop the pathetic blame game and do one.
Or learn what United have always tried to be about, excitement and the joy of football, you self centred bellend!
Don't hold out much hope on either of those fronts for next season, so likely to be more of the same tedious, turgid, fear ridden crap"

He was in the United end when we played up there and favourably contrasts Hughton who seems to have massive respect in the PL.

Mourinho IS ruining Pogba. He's been shit in every game I've seen him in this season (twice live, several times on telly) and that's too many for a supposedly world class player who cost what he cost. Recruitment is also dubious. As soon as Lukaku got injured they had no focal point at all up front. Even we had the option of Ulloa if something happened to Murray. And I very much agree that they would have struggled even more without De Gea, we all saw at the Amex how he's the best in the business. Second and a cup final is ostensibly ok but at the end of the day it's no trophy and a very poor Champions League campaign by their standards. Plus they lost to all three newly promoted sides.

All the above means it is at least worth debating. The fact that you won't suggests that you can't.

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Er, I was debating Mourinho's merits. I didn't say that wasn't worth debating. I was responding to a specific poster who made points such as:

- Pogba under Pep would be the best midfielder in the world by a distance (quite an extreme statement to make)
- The reason by Shaw and Rashford won't start for England in the summer is because of Mourinho (Shaw has been said to have a terrible attitude, Rashford has shown spells of class but needs to be more consistent - he does look like he's short on confidence which Mourinho has to take part of the blame for, but I haven't seen enough from him to suggest he should be starting)
- Apart from Lukaku and De Gea, the rest of United's players are going backwards under Mourinho (got the best out of his back four who don't contain a single world class player, done pretty well with young players like Lingard (who ever imagined him becoming an important player for United) and McTominay (apparently the youth management never thought would make it into the first team))
- The players don't want to play for him (yet they finished second when you can't say their team is clearly individually superior to the rest of the top five)
- Individual game tactics are letting him down as proven on Sunday (when they were the better team - what can he do when Pogba misses an easy chance to equalise with his head? That's not his fault; I would argue it's because of his tactics that they have managed to finish second and in most other seasons be fighting for the title, despite not having an amazing squad at an individual level)
- United would have won the league this season had Pep and Mourinho switched places at the start of the season (Pep didn't exactly do so great in his first season at City did he? Just another wild statement)
- He doesn't know how Jose is still in the job (it's pretty obvious, he's made progress)
- He says he's so out of touch with the modern game it’s laughable (yet won the Premier League title just 3 seasons ago)

I think it's a waste of my time to debate people at the extremes (as football fans often are) because it doesn't to my mind result in a reasonable debate. What's the point?

You and Ice Gull above you make some reasonable points which are definitely worth debating.

Pogba hasn't performed the way he would have been expected to, but I think his situation is partly being overblown because of his price tag. He's had some brilliant performances where he's run games, but he's been far too inconsistent, often following them up with poor games. Stats don't say it all, but his goal scoring and assist record is similar to his time in Italy. You would have expected him to improve that, but it's not like he's ever been a 20-goal a season attacking midfielder. You would expect more scrutiny on a player like him, who cost so much, that's fair, but he does seem to be the go-to scapegoat when things aren't going well. Against us at home however, he was pathetic - he looked like he couldn't be arsed. Players have to take some personal responsibility too.

United would have struggled more without De Gea, but isn't that same for pretty much any team in the world? He was also their player of the season in 13/14, 14/15 and 15/16, when without Mourinho, they finished 7th, 4th and 5th (and would have finished lower were it not for De Gea). Goalkeepers are important - Ferguson said United would always need a good goal keeper as they'll always concede chances the way they play (under him obviously, not Mourinho ).

He hasn't made as much progress as he would have wanted, but he's still made clear progress with United - progress that no other manager since Ferguson could. I think if they got rid of him it would just set them back to the position they were in when Ferguson left.