5 reasons why Jose Mourinho failed at Manchester United

#4 His fractious relationship with his players

Pogba and Jose Mourinho fell out at United

Managers are very much more than mere tacticians who provide tactical switches and formations for their teams to win matches, they must also act as motivators to help their players perform at an optimum on a weekly basis.

There are different ways they go about this, with some going the fatherly way by absorbing everyone in with Carlo Ancelotti and Arsene Wenger perhaps being the best proponents of this method, others harbor genuine relationships with their players and Jurgen Klopp's hugging of his players shows a bond which goes beyond professional.

Others maintain a sort of aloof and professional relationship with their players, with Pep Guardiola giving off the notion that he operates in this way, while others yet still go about criticizing their underperforming players in public in a reverse psychology way to get the best out of them.

Jose Mourinho is a major proponent of the last method and while none is a distinct blueprint for success, with different coaches applying different methods to varying methods of success, but the evolving nature of the game means that the public criticism methods rarely gets the desired result.

Jose Mourinho famously deployed these methods in the past and got the response from said players, but times have really changed and the modern player wields a lot of power, owing to increased exposure to endorsements, salary increases and global presence thanks to social media and they know this, with the result being that players today have super inflated (fragile?) egos than at any point in time.

Jose Mourinho once quipped that Lampard and Terry were already men at the age of 22 and gave him the responses he needed, but Terry and Lampard played in an era where there was no social media and footballers were just that professional footballers who went about their job with minimum fuss, with only a few such as David Beckham and Ronaldinho enjoying extensive media coverage.

Today's world has seen footballers evolve from being just players to luxury brands in their own right and the notion of no player being bigger than a manager has become outdated, as so many players earn more than their coaches, with the result being that they most times have huge says in boardroom decisions.

Numerous examples of players wielding power exists today, from Bayern players effectively getting Ancelotti sacked (same as with Jose during his second spell at Chelsea), to Sergio Ramos stating that respect was earned not demanded which was a damning indictment on Conte's disciplinarian methods (and effectively put an end to his getting the Real Madrid job that he was in pole position to land).

Jose Mourinho infamously fell out with key players at Real Madrid including Sergio Ramos, Iker Casillas and Cristiano Ronaldo, and the same thing happened at Chelsea during his second spell, with the Portuguese stating that he felt betrayed by his players upon his sacking.

Apparently, he did not learn his lessons and barely a year into his tenure as United boss, he had begun to have clashes with his players, publicly criticising players like Luke Shaw, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial.

His feaud with Paul Pogba was the most high profile and dragged out, with Mou stripping him off the vice captaincy in addition to benching him for some key matches and there were numerous signs of cracks appearing in the United dressing room.

Jose Mourinho's repeated clashes with his players cost him his job at Real Madrid and Chelsea and it is also a huge factor in why he was dismissed by Manchester United.