Jose Mourinho is fighting, but this may be a battle he can’t win

There is a curse that comes for football managers. Some keep it at bay for years at a time; others succumb within months. But they all fall victim, just before the end. They lose the dressing room.

As a cliche, it’s essentially just shorthand for “They’ve annoyed a critical mass of people who are supposed to respect them, and now everybody’s thinks they’re a buffoon.” But the suggestion is moderately heartbreaking. They had the dressing room. It was right there. And now it’s gone, and they’d like it back — of course they would. But they don’t know where to look.

And so when Terry Gilliam gets around to making documentary series about Jose Mourinho’s time at Manchester United, it will end with the manager slumped on the floor of a corridor somewhere in the twisting bowels of Old Trafford. Fists bloodied, head bowed, still weakly pawing at a wall that definitely isn’t a door, much less one that leads to a dressing room. “It was right here,” he’ll sob. “Right here. I had it.”

Then Paul Pogba’s face will appear in the moon, and ... fin.

The Pogba question — or the tangle of questions, the whats and the whys of his aggravatingly mixed performances — feels emblematic of the weird position in which Mourinho finds himself, here at the beginning of his third United season. It’s not quite as pointed a problem as that of Anthony Martial, who is reportedly considering signing a new five-year contract in the expectation that his manager will be gone before the ink is dry.

But it’s much more interesting, and important, because Mourinho is so obviously interested in Pogba as a footballer, even though he doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with him. Pogba has played in a three, and a two, on the left and in the middle; he’s appeared in front of the defence and behind the attack. He’s even been dropped in favour of a callow, lanky kid. And now, this season, he’s been given the vice-captaincy. That’s a compliment, a vote of confidence, and perhaps, just a little bit, an attempt to see if proximity to the magical armband will help things click into focus.

United’s armband is a heavy thing that invites demanding comparisons. All who wear it in will be, inevitably, compared to those who went before, and when it comes to the Premier League, that means Roy Keane.

Brought to United in 1993 by Alex Ferguson, Keane was made club captain four years later, and won seven league titles, four FA Cups, and the 1999 Champions League while at Old Trafford. But beyond the trophies, Keane stands — at least in this correspondent’s hazy memory — as the very archetype of The Football (C)aptain. Terrifyingly focused, relentlessly demanding, excellent at the game as a matter of course and of example. And most importantly, glowing with the magical captainly attribute of commitment. To the cause, to the shirt, to the badge. To winning.

When we talk about commitment in footballers, it is often framed as a matter of personal application. It is something that comes from within: this player is giving their all, while that one is not. This players has enough commitment; that one does not, and must find more or move on. And perhaps, by conceiving of commitment in this fashion, we omit important questions of context.

Keane, for example, was in the fortunate position of playing for Ferguson, who from around the mid-90s was more or less untouchable at United. It wasn’t just that when Ferguson decided something, he was probably right. Just as important was the fact that when he was wrong, he would be the person trusted to try and fix it. That was rare enough when the Premier League was in its infancy; it’s almost unheard of now.

It’s easier to be committed to something when you know that your boss is both brilliant and utterly secure in their position. As a general rule, a good boss can make the most banal of tasks seem like something worth doing, and well, while a bad one can ruin anything and everything. Footballers are as human as the rest of us — even Keane — but they have the extra knowledge that if their boss is bad, or weird, or just not up to the standard required, then they’ll probably be gone in fairly short time.

As a side note here, it’s worth recalling that Keane, contra-archetype, did eventually turn on his boss. In the mid-noughties, as United struggled to keep up with newly-minted Chelsea, Keane brought his career at Old Trafford to a close by criticising his own teammates on MUTV in terms too explosive to broadcast.

Maybe this, too, counts as (c)ommitment of a sort: a lieutenant delivering some sharp truths to his commanding officer, for the good of the mission. He certainly wasn’t alone in his disdain for United’s set-up at that moment. Alternatively, it was just the displaced frustration of a player whose knees were beginning to go. Either way, off he went to Celtic, while Ferguson got on with fixing things and picking up a few more titles.

Ferguson was trusted by those above him, with good reason, and by those below him, also with good reason, and so United resonated with a happy security. Now, the managers gives press conferences reminding everybody that he’s still amazing, while his players flit and in out of form and favour. The club throbs with an aching insecurity. It must be a very strange place to work, however abstractly committed to the glory of Fred the Red one might be.

And this is why, as monstrously unsympathetic a person as he is, it’s hard not to feel for Jose Mourinho. Just a little bit. No, really. There was once a time where his record, of which he is so proud, would have earned him the enduring respect he craves. Just as importantly, it would have earned him the institutional security he is transparently not being afforded by his bosses.

Instead, his opinions on central defenders are being corrected by an investment banker. And the parts of his record that people keep pointing at are the bad parts. The third-season meltdown parts. It’s hard to argue that he does seem to burn through clubs, leaving scorched earth in his wake, though at United his third-season meltdown was being anticipated before his first had begun, giving it something of a self-fulfilling momentum. In any case, three years is pretty good for a football manager these days.

Pogba is being asked to perform commitment, and Mourinho authority, in circumstances that are at times unhelpful, and occasionally actively hostile. Perhaps the performance of commitment should be automatic; perhaps the authority of the manager has to be earned before it can be assumed. But if Pogba was a little perturbed by the general state of things, and Mourinho a little narked, it would be hard to blame them. Not even Keane and Ferguson were at their best all the time, and they had the mutual knowledge of one another’s brilliance to rely on.

Archetypes cast a long shadow, and the memories of Ferguson and Keane will hang over plenty more United managers and midfielders yet. But greatness is always a product of genius placed and provoked within the right context. United, anchored around the utterly secure Ferguson, used to be a club where players could express their commitment in its fullest flourishing. What else was there to do?

Now, it’s a twitchy place. If the manager hasn’t officially lost the dressing room yet, he’s certainly starting to wonder if he took a wrong turning back there. And all the time he’s failing to find it, the players are sitting inside, waiting for him to turn up. Wondering if he will. Listening to his muffled shouting coming through the walls. Thinking about the future, and wondering if Mourinho appears in it.