José Mourinho's third season meltdown has already begun | OneFootball

José Mourinho always comes good in his second season at a club, and implodes in his third.

Over the course of the Portuguese maestro’s career, this has become less a noticeable pattern and more an accepted fact.

But though Mourinho didn’t come good in his second season at Manchester United, it seems his traditional third season meltdown is already in full swing.

The former Chelsea and Real Madrid boss has been moodier than a hormonal teenager during United’s pre-season tour of the United States and according to widespread reports on Tuesday, the club’s hierarchy are worried that the manager’s glass-half-empty outlook is beginning to put his players in a similar funk.

The Red Devils went to the International Champions Cup without 17 of Mourinho’s first-team players due to their participation at the World Cup.

This, combined with the club’s disappointing lack of transfer activity, has seen him lash out at Antonio Valencia and Anthony Martial (who was lambasted for returning home for the birth of his child) in press conferences, and suggest he wouldn’t pay to watch his own team play following Saturday’s 4-1 hammering at the hands of fierce rivals Liverpool in Michigan.

Mourinho is said to be furious at Ed Woodward due to the chief executive’s failure to sufficiently strengthen the squad over the summer and according to a report carried by several national newspapers, one senior player was so worried about antagonising his manager that he asked for one of his answers to be cut from an interview aired by the club’s in-house TV channel.

“José’s mood is dragging the whole tour down,” a source is quoted as telling the Daily Mail.

“He’s clearly not happy with Ed Woodward and everyone else is suffering because of it.”

A different source told the Mail that some players “exhausted” by his behaviour, and it shows.

According to The Telegraph, Mourinho’s present petulance has been in the post for 12 months.

This time last year, the two-time Champions League winner was left incensed when the club refused to pay the extra £5m needed to complete a deal for Inter Milan winger Ivan Perišić.

Then, having already publicly criticised Martial and Luke Shaw in the early part of last season, Mourinho dropped record signing Paul Pogba from the team following the embarrassing Champions League exit at the hands of Sevilla – a decision which proved to be deeply unpopular with the rest of his players and perhaps sparked the beginning of the end of his United tenure.

There’s a good reason Mourinho’s so-called third season syndrome has become part of football’s lexicon.

After back-to-back Premier League title wins in his first two seasons at Chelsea, things quickly began to unravel during his third term when he clashed with owner Roman Abramovich over the purchase of Andriy Shevchenko.

Though he did actually complete that season having won the FA Cup and the League Cup, by 20 September of the following season, he was gone.

Life at Real Madrid began swimmingly for Mourinho too and by the summer of 2012, he had smashed Barcelona’s La Liga title monopoly and been rewarded with a new four-year contract.

However, the following campaign, public spats with Sergio Ramos, Iker Casillas and Cristiano Ronaldo, amongst others, drove a wedge between the coach and his players and the nadir of what he would later describe as “the worst season of my career” came when when he poked Barcelona assistant coach Tito Vilanova in the eye during a touchline brawl.

Madrid won nothing, finished 15 points behind Barça and three days after the season finished, José was on his bike.

Fast forward to the summer of 2015 and Mourinho was basking in the glow of having delivered another Premier League title in his second spell at Chelsea, and pen was put to paper on another four-year contract.

But the Blues lost seven of their first 12 games of 2015/16 and Mourinho was involved in an ugly spat with physio Eva Carneiro after a 2-2 home draw with Swansea City.

With the reigning champions floundering 16th in the table, Mourinho was sacked in disgrace, leaving his Stamford Bridge legacy in tatters.

Last December, the 55-year-old was handed a new contract which would theoretically keep him at Old Trafford until 2020.

But remarkably, as things stand, the manager of last season’s runners-up is about to enter the new campaign as the bookies’ favourite to win the managerial sack race.

And the way he’s carrying on at the moment, his seemingly inevitable departure would be a relief to everyone involved with a great club which has seen better days.