Rio Ferdinand has apologized to Jose Mourinho for remarks he made regarding his tenure as Manchester United manager at Old Trafford.
United’s fortunes are at an all-time low, with the team on track to finish with the lowest points total in Premier League history.
The last time United was in such a poor mood was when Mourinho was fired in 2018, following a 3-1 loss to Liverpool, with Paul Pogba being put on the bench as things went sour for the manager.
Mourinho’s honesty was called into doubt a year later when he said that his stint as manager of the 13-time Premier League champions was one of his finest jobs.
“If I tell you, for example, that I consider one of the best jobs of my career was to finish second with Manchester United in the Premier League, you will say, ‘this guy is crazy,'” he told beIN Sports.
“I keep saying this because people don’t know what is going on behind the scenes.”
Following the revelation of the entire nature of the team’s problems over the last three years, Ferdinand has now accepted that the Roma manager may have been correct all along, and has apologized for questioning him.
“I think Jose Mourinho ’s quote has aged so, so well. And me for one, I would apologise maybe to some extent in terms of the way you kind of looked at him and judged him,” the former centre back said on his YouTube channel.
“I still think there were flaws in some of the ways he handled people and handled some of the situations that he was involved in.
“But in terms of looking behind the scenes, that [quote] he said in 2019 on finishing second in the Premier League, that has aged so well.
“We can see that there’s been stuff going on that’s wrong behind the scenes, but at that time we didn’t know the extent of it. Obviously, Jose Mourinho did.
“He wanted to get rid of numerous players and he wanted to bring in certain players, and obviously big wages and contracts were handed out to certain players and he’s thinking, ‘Woah, woah, woah, what’s going on?!'”
United ended 19 points behind Manchester City in second place under Mourinho in 2018, and they finished second to City again last season under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, although they were still well behind their rivals.
Things haven’t improved much behind the scenes in the three and a half years since the former Chelsea manager departed the northwest of England.
Even interim manager Ralf Rangnick recently expressed dissatisfaction with his inability to get the acquisitions he desired in January when he sought a striker.
The attitude in the camp hasn’t improved either, with Jesse Lingard, a player who should have been sold last summer, lamenting the lack of a send-off in front of the home crowd.
Gary Neville, on the other hand, highlighted why the player’s whining was off the point, citing prior greats who weren’t merely granted game time.
