Rio Ferdinand says Jose Mourinho was right about Manchester United

Mourinho finished second in the 2017/18 Premier League season with United but was sacked a few months later with the side sitting in sixth place, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer brought in to replace him initially on a caretaker basis.

After his sacking, the 59-year-old told beIN Sports in 2019 that his runner-up spot was “one of the best jobs of my career” as there were issues “behind the scenes” that people were unaware of.

With United on the brink of having their fourth manager since Mourinho was sacked – with Solskjaer, Michael Carrick and Ralf Rangnick all taking turns in the dugout before Erik ten Hag takes over this summer – Ferdinand believes Mourinho’s criticism is unfounded on the structure and hierarchy of the club and believes he deserves more credit for his work.

“I still think there were some flaws in the way he dealt with people and handled some of the situations he was involved in.

“But in terms of behind-the-scenes [quote] he said in 2019 about second place in the Premier League having aged so well.

“We can see that things happened behind the scenes that went wrong, but at that point we didn’t know to what extent. Apparently Jose Mourinho did.

“He wanted to get rid of numerous players and he wanted to bring in certain players and obviously certain players were being handed big wages and contracts and he was like, ‘Woah, woah, woah, what’s up?!'”

“He could see the faults in certain people, he could see the faults in the way the club was set up, he wanted to change things and that was probably not granted to him.

“Listen, I’d like half an hour to talk to Jose about his time there, just to find out where he’s been in a little more detail than we’ve ever seen, and then gauge where it’s going we are now – that would be very revealing.”

MORE: Rio Ferdinand slams Ralf Rangnick as ‘despicable’ and says Manchester United should ban him from press conferences

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