Mourinho is a man devoid of hope, how long can he last?

On the third anniversary of his sacking at Chelsea, Jose Mourinho found himself in familiar territory on Monday.

An under-fire coach fighting for survival after two-and-a-half years in the job, struggling to turn round a turgid season amid fears he has lost the support of his players.

At Chelsea, the situation proved terminal for Mourinho in December 2015. At Manchester United, he struggles on — for now, at least.

But it prompts the question: just how much longer it can continue this time? Even by the woeful standards United have set in the post-Ferguson era, Mourinho's side are plumbing new depths.

He has overseen the club's worst start to a top-flight season since 1990, when Sir Alex Ferguson himself was struggling at Old Trafford.

United are 19 points behind leaders Liverpool — and 11 adrift of the top four — after Sunday's chastening defeat at Anfield. Approaching the halfway point of the season, a club who once prided themselves on attacking football have a goal difference of zero.

Nothing has emphasised United's decline quite so brutally as their losses to Liverpool and Manchester City this season.

Mourinho's side appeared to be hanging on from the start, merely trying to limit the damage inflicted by two far superior rivals. On both occasions, a final score of 3-1 felt like a lucky escape.

To think, Mourinho's appointment in 2016 was meant to be United's masterstroke to counter the threat of Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp.

'When Mourinho got the job we were all delighted,' said Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher. 'Mourinho and Guardiola, the top two managers. We don't even speak about them in the same sentence. Guardiola has risen and Mourinho has gone backwards.

'I think the biggest decision for Manchester United is when there is a change of manager, whether it's before the end of the season or at the end of the season. I don't know how long it can go on.'

If comparisons with the scintillating football of Guardiola and Klopp are embarrassing for Mourinho, then what about the impact of Unai Emery and Maurizio Sarri at Arsenal and Chelsea, proving just how quickly a club's fortunes can be turned round?

When Mourinho admitted solemnly last week that he is far from making United into the team he wants after nearly three seasons in the job, he looked like a man devoid of hope.

And what about Mauricio Pochettino, the 46-year-old manager understood to be at the top of United's list to replace Mourinho next summer? He has demonstrated at Tottenham this season that progress can be maintained without spending a single penny in the transfer market.

Wherever Mourinho looks these days, there are awkward questions and precious few answers. He complains about a lack of investment, but at Anfield record signing Paul Pogba spent the entire match on the bench for the second league game in a row and £52million summer buy Fred wasn't even among the substitutes again.

Romelu Lukaku, meanwhile, looked a shadow of a £75m striker. 'We used to have centre forwards like Cantona who would turn bad balls into good balls,' said United legend Ryan Giggs. 'Now we have centre forwards like Lukaku who turn good balls into bad balls.'

The Belgian is not the only player to have gone backwards under Mourinho. He has failed to get the most out of what remains a gifted group of individuals, and his attempts to do so have merely alienated them.

The fallout with Pogba, in particular, has been toxic but the problems run deeper than that. When United fought back to draw 2-2 with both Southampton and Arsenal at the start of this month, players talked with more than a hint of regret about saving Mourinho from the sack.

He responded to a question about losing the dressing room on Sunday by once again turning it on his inquisitor. To doubt the players' effort for the manager is to call them 'dishonest', he claimed, but in reality very few are still behind him.

'I think he's got a dressing room that's given up on him,' observed Graeme Souness.

Ideally, United would like to keep Mourinho until the end of the season, or at least until they are incapable of reaching the top four. That was the breaking point for David Moyes and Louis van Gaal.

But what if they are forced to act early by the crisis now engulfing Mourinho?

Would they bring forward their plans to get a long-term replacement such as Pochettino, or turn to an experienced caretaker until the summer? Surely it would be too early in the season to hand the reins to his assistant Michael Carrick.

'When you lose a manager during a season you've got the situation of who comes in,' said Gary Neville, another United great. 'Are they going to get the manager they want at the football club for the next three to four years?'

If there is a scrap of consolation for Mourinho this morning, the situation is not as bad as it was at Stamford Bridge three years ago when an equally damaging 3-1 defeat against Klopp's Liverpool contributed to Chelsea's slide to 16th in the table when he was sacked in December.

Nor is he solely to blame for the problems at United, many of which preceded his arrival. The United hierarchy and players must take their share of responsibility, too.

But, ultimately, it looks as though he is the one who will end up paying the price again.