Jose Mourinho could live to regret Europa League rancour

Of all the legacies Louis Van Gaal bequeathed to his successor there is no doubt about the one Jose Mourinho could most do without. And, despite all logical assumption, it isn’t Memphis Depay. After the draw with Arsenal last weekend, the Manchester United manager made plain exactly why it was that his squad were falling behind Liverpool and Chelsea in the race for the title: it is because they are obliged to participate in the Europa League, the equivalent of a cosh applied to your competitive ambition.

While Jurgen Klopp and Antonio Conte could spend their weeks on the training pitch, honing their plans, building team spirit, working on new manoeuvres, Mourinho complained he was obliged to travel across half of Europe to play matches of little consequence and even more limited reward. This is not Barcelona or Real Madrid his team is playing against. There is no glamour involved, not educative opportunity, no gloss added to the club’s history. It’s Fenerbahce and Feyenoord who are there to supply the embarrassment.

For the United manager, being in the Europa League is nothing but a drain. If he wins matches, well so he should. If he loses, then it is a crisis. It is not so much the Thursday/Sunday rhythm that irritates him. It is the expensive waste of vital time that might be better used on the training pitch. All that he knows for sure is that it is undermining his efforts to develop a championship challenging side. For him, this is the Checkatrade Trophy of European tournaments, the epitome of pointless.

Mind, the way he has approached it – with all the enthusiasm of a schoolboy obliged to do a cross country run in a hail storm – Mourinho’s acquaintance with the Europa League may well turn out to be short lived. Unless he is under the impression that coming third in the group gifts you a place in the Champions League knock-out phase, he seems to have already yelled out his safe-word: I’m a two-time winner of the European Cup, get me out of here. United’s chances of still being in Europe after Christmas are hanging by a thread. Which is precisely the way he wants it.

If they are to crash out at the very first hurdle, however, even as the fans, playing staff and management at Old Trafford breathe a sigh of relief that they can now concentrate on more important matters, the bureaucrats at UEFA headquarters will fume. Because United’s presence in the competition has gifted it a vital kudos.

Generally its early stages, before the drop-outs from the Champions League buff things up after Christmas, barely attracts any attention. United’s involvement has beefed up viewing figures no end. Thursday night football might still be a joke, but at least with United being there it means someone is watching. Now, if they slip out of contention, the thing will go back to being played out in front of the television equivalent of one man and his insomniac dog. Celebrity Loft Conversion on Dave, featuring Cheryl from Bucks Fizz and Bruno Brookes, will glean a bigger audience.

Yet, were they to slip away hangdog and shame-faced, you wonder if Mourinho might look back and consider it an opportunity lost. If the critical pointer of success for any Manchester United manager is qualifying for the Champions League (and it was a failure to do so that signalled the end of both Mourinho’s immediate predecessors) then maybe the Europa League offers a more secure route for this current squad than via finishing in the top four of the Premier League.

Sure, there is a long way to go (this is a competition which seems to defy all known laws of time and space and drag on way beyond conventional boundaries). Sure there is only one way to guarantee upward mobility and that is by still being there at the end when everyone else has died of boredom and actually winning the trophy. But for United that might still represent the surest way to the competition with which Mourinho – and the owners of the club – long to be re-acquainted. After all, six points adrift of the top four in the Premier League is no place to be if you have serious ambition.

After the Arsenal game, Mourinho insisted that United had been unlucky in the accumulation of Premier League points. Despite dominating play, they had drawn their last three home matches. Had they taken their chances and done what they should have done, they would have accumulated six more points. Which would have made everything look significantly more rosy.

If, though, is no basis for legitimate planning in football. And the truth is, United have rarely been anything more than reasonable this season. Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Spurs have all looked more legitimate candidates for the top four. Before they hit their traditional November brick wall, Arsenal too looked way ahead of Mourinho’s men.

The truth is this is the most competitive Premier League in the competition’s 25-year history. Never before have so many clubs been in contention. Never before has it been so impossibly hard to predict who will come out on top. And, whatever Mourinho’s insistence on the narrowness of the margins, at present United appear a long way from contending. Come the end of the season, the United boss may well look back on the competition he prefers not to name and think of what might have been had he set out to win it rather than blame it for his wider shortcomings.