Roy Keane's comments have made their way around the internet by this stage, but there's a reason why his comments on Mourinho complaining about fixture pile-up were said with such venom.
He's the manager of Manchester United, one of the biggest clubs on the planet, the squad he's got, the players.. And he keeps moaning about fixtures and fatigue.. We just had a look at some of the cup draws they've had, and they've had an easy ride in the cup. Some good draws, home draws.
The guy is talking absolute nonsense.
While most pundits would have said something less ferocious and ultimately sympathised with Jose because the club do have a lot of fixtures to play in a short space of time, Keane made his point from personal experience.
In 1999 when Manchester United had to compete on three fronts, where they would ultimately lift all three trophies, they had to compete with a truly ridiculous April and May in particular. We decided to compare that run to what lies ahead for Mourinho and Man Utd, and where Keane's disdain comes from.
BT Sport last night flashed up a graphic dependent on Man Utd reaching the Europa League final:
17 (or 14 if Anderlecht knock them out) games in 70 days, that's an average of a game every four days should they reach the Europa League final.
If they get there then it's 8 games in the month of April, including 3 games in 9 days which is followed by 4 games in 10 days.
Then again in May, it's a ridiculous 4 games in 9 days. Remarkably, that does not include two additional fixtures that need to be arranged after being moved for the League Cup.
Now onto the 1999 run.
Between March 3rd and May 26th Man Utd played 20 matches of football and, remarkably, went unbeaten. That averages about a game every 4 days, and they had to play 6 games in 14 days at the start of March, 3 games in 9 days at the start of April, and 4 games in 12 days at the start of May. About the same as what Jose has had to put up with...
In conclusion, Roy is right.
A club like Manchester United, that demands a decent performance in every cup competition they enter, should be expecting these sort of fixture pile-ups at the back end of the season. He was so upset by Mourinho's outrage at the fixture list because not only did he have to suffer worse as a player, but he just shut up and did it, and came out at the other end with three trophies.
They also had to face opponents of the level that Arsenal, Juventus, Inter Milan, and Chelsea (who finished just four points behind United) were at in 1999, twice.
It's clear what Mourinho is trying to do in create an 'us against them' mentality in his players, and it remains to be seen how that will work out, but claiming that there's some sort of grand scheme working against the club when it comes to fixtures is, well, nonsensical. 1999 may be an extreme example, but it just goes to show that what United will face is not unprecedented.
In fact, it's what the club badly want. Imagine if the Premier League included a winter-break on top of that? Now there's fixture congestion for you.
