Mourinho's lap of honour is over: The Man United boss gets respect every day

Every lap of honour has to end, eventually. More than three years after his last title win at Chelsea, Jose Mourinho seems to think he is still on his.

After Monday’s defeat by Tottenham, he held up three fingers. Not to signify the scoreline, the biggest home defeat of his professional career, but to indicate the Premier League titles he has won.

More than any manager currently working in the division; more than the rest of them put together. And that’s a fact. But it’s also history. Ancient history in the case of two of the prizes, secured in 2005 and 2006.

A lot has changed since then.

Of the 19 opponents Mourinho’s Chelsea faced down to win the Premier League in 2005-06, more than half are in the divisions below and three have fallen as far as League One. So while credit is forever due to Mourinho — to all great managers — for his achievements, the lap of honour is over.

As for respect, he got it. On May 27, 2016, he was appointed manager of Manchester United, the biggest, most successful, storied club in England and according to Deloitte the richest in the world. He got the job because his track record was respected.

Further respect arrived on January 25, 2018, when, despite trailing Manchester City by 19 points, he was awarded an extended, improved contract. Mourinho may feel he is short of many things: top class centre-halves, the financial largesse afforded Pep Guardiola, the praise lavished on Jurgen Klopp — yet to win a trophy as Liverpool manager — but respect he most certainly does not lack.

Deference? Well, that’s different. If Mourinho believes he can lose two of his first three games, including a heavy home defeat to a club considered a title rival, and be immune to a testing question or two, he is mistaken.

Mourinho is never treated with the rudeness he on occasions dishes out to others, he never faces the scowls of contempt his inquisitors do, but he is not above challenge. If Monday night’s performance was an indication of his mood when feeling pressured, Mourinho needs to start winning games or resign himself to spending a lot of the season angry.

There are certain standards expected of Manchester United and leaking six goals in two matches falls short of the bar. When the manager then walks in after the game, those are the only numbers people care about. Not what happened 13 years ago, at a different club.

With his three titles reference Mourinho is nodding, in part, to a time before Martin Jol was manager of Tottenham; before the Glazers owned Manchester United outright; when Brian Clough and Bill Nicholson were alive and a 17-year-old Cesc Fabregas made his Arsenal debut.

Nobody should forget what he did at Chelsea first time around, but it cannot be played like a trump card every time storm clouds gather at Old Trafford. Respect? Mourinho gets that every day of his life. What he cannot get is a free pass.

He has built a Manchester United side without identity. Indeed, if he wants to hark back to his Chelsea heyday, right there is the greatest difference. The best teams, and Mourinho’s Chelsea were certainly among them, do not really need to wear colours.

They would be instantly recognisable in plain white T’s because they know what they are about. We can tell a team produced by Guardiola or Klopp and after three games even Chelsea’s Sarri-ball can be recognised. Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester, Antonio Conte’s Chelsea: great champions know what they stand for. And Mourinho’s teams always did, too.

Those who don’t understand his brilliance, who truly don’t respect him, call it parking the bus, but Mourinho has always been more sophisticated than that. His first Chelsea team was huge but also capable of exquisite beauty, of taking opponents apart technically. They did that, memorably, to the Manchester United of Sir Alex Ferguson, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney in Mourinho’s second season, winning 3-0 at Stamford Bridge to secure the title.

Compare that to Mourinho’s team now. What are they? A passing team that leans on Marouane Fellaini’s height late in matches? A powerful, scrapping team that gets out-muscled at Brighton? United at their worst this season have reminded of little more than Harry Redknapp’s stinging criticism of Fabio Capello-era England. ‘It comes down to identity — we don’t have any,’ he said. ‘Are we kicking it, are we passing it? We don’t know.’ Mourinho’s teams always knew, but this United are vague.

When Victor Lindelof almost set up Dele Alli for Tottenham’s third on Monday it was because his passing options had all but evaporated. No one wanted the ball and, panicking, he hit it back, but short, to David de Gea.

This happens to teams that are struggling. Joe Hart said that when he was at Manchester City he often had seven or eight passes available when he looked up from his penalty area, yet playing for careworn West Ham last season that number might be one or two. If this is happening at United, whose fault is it? Who has placed that negativity in the players’ minds?

West Ham’s home games were poisonous during Hart’s time. A player making an error knew he might be a target. That is not the case at Old Trafford where fans have been patient. They want to be loyal, they want to be true, they want to prove they are not just glory-hunters.

So why the fear? This is why Mourinho is not above reproach, or at least some searching questions. He was right that United had a good first half against Tottenham, but they lost their way very quickly in adversity.

And if United are missing their swagger, might some of that not be down to the manager, who has appeared so tetchy all season? Did he take joy in Paul Pogba’s triumph at the World Cup, did he behave in a way likely to breed confidence in his defensive line?

By appearing so obviously dissatisfied with the club’s transfer policy and his centre-halves, by using Pogba’s summer as an excuse to scold, has he not contributed to the air of negativity around the club?

The cartoonist, David Squires, has taken to depicting Mourinho as a moody, emo-leaning teenager, floppy fringe covering one eye, dark eye-liner, My Chemical Romance T-shirt — ‘a surly 14-year-old boy trapped in the body of a surly middle-aged man’.

No doubt that is precisely the type of image Mourinho would find disrespectful. But that wasn’t what he was up against on Monday night.

He was taking unexceptional questions about an exceptional result because he is the manager of Manchester United and had just lost 3-0 at home.

And he responded by citing another club’s history — pretty much another manager’s history, too.

Because the Mourinho who retained the title at Chelsea wouldn’t be dragged down like this. He was sharp, he was smart, he would have been a brilliant Manchester United manager. And he wouldn’t be distracted by trivia, either, by waiting for Arsene Wenger to retire so he could quote his fact about winning more titles than the rest put together.

He was better than that, he was bigger than that — and he produced teams that were bigger and better, too.