Is there any way back for Jose Mourinho at Manchester United?

Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United are floundering on and off the pitch. Has the season reached the point of no return following their 3-1 defeat at West Ham?

Manchester United are on just 10 points, good for their joint worst ever start to a Premier League campaign. With Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City already in top form, United are looking at a battle to even qualify for the Champions League. Any dream of competing for the title seems a delusion, for even the most optimistic of fans.

It’s been a chaotic few months for the club. Jose Mourinho has once again lived up to his third season reputation. It’s a familiar song-and-dance for Mourinho. From the outside, it seems his grating personality and an insistence on playing passive, defensive soccer is doing him in with yet another club. He and Paul Pogba have been waging a quasi-cold war through the press for weeks.

A video released by Sky Sports of the two awkwardly interacting during training is telling of the current state of affairs. Theirs makes for an interesting power struggle. Pogba and his agent, Mino Raiola, have agitated for a move to Barcelona. The club’s front office seem to be stuck in a holding pattern, supporting neither the player nor the manager, hoping the situation magically resolves itself.

If there were a saving grace for the off field drama, it could have been the on-field performances. Yet, United have been dire for much of the season. This has been perhaps the worst week yet, and that’s saying something. The Red Devils were thoroughly outplayed in the Carabao Cup by Derby, going out on penalties. On Saturday, United were played off the park by a rejuvenated West Ham side. It’s an old trick to point out the wage discrepancies between clubs of this stature, but it’s a fair point. United have invested heavily in their squad and still are nowhere near the level they expect. That starts with the manager.

West Ham took the game immediately at the London Stadium, opening the scoring within the first five minutes through a clever finish from Felipe Anderson. West Ham nabbed a second before the break before Marcus Rashford drew one back. Then, as United were chasing the game, they conceded a goal that’s representative of their struggles.

Pablo Zabaleta won the ball back off a long ball from David de Gea and passed it to Mark Noble. Noble, completely unmarked, scanned his options for several seconds before playing Marko Arnautovic through on a goal, splitting the center-backs. Arnautovic easily slotted home to secure the points. From Zabalaleta’s shrugging off of Rashford, to the time and space afforded to Noble to the finish, it looked like a training exercise. Mourinho is regarded as a master of defensive soccer. In the past, no manager got more out of his players. Now? Now he looks like a dinosaur, a man whose voice no longer carries in the dressing room.

Is it all too late for Mourinho at United? It’s looking alarmingly like it is. There is a way back, at least toward European qualification. This is still a club with a massive amount of talent. De Gea remains one of, if not the, best goalkeepers in the world. Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Rashford, Jesse Lingard and Alexis Sanchez, in a more open system, could create one of the league’s top strike forces. Sanchez has struggled to find end product since joining United, but he’s still been an effective playmaker.

The only way for Mourinho to get the best out of this squad, before it’s too late, is to stop being Mourinho. Embrace the strength of the team. Listen to Pogba. Open up play and let your playmakers make plays in space. The next four matches most likely represent the last chance for the team to turn it around. They host Valencia midweek in the Champions League, then Newcastle visit Old Trafford on the weekend. In two weeks, United travel to London to take on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge before hosting Cristiano Ronaldo and Juventus in the Champions League. If United can rally and get the results they desperately need, it could spark a renaissance for Mourinho.

But we all know this cannot and will not happen. Mourinho is an iconoclast. He’s an unrivaled heel. This will only ever end one way.