Weekly Why: Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and the Mystery of Denied Resignations
Welcome to Bleacher Report's Weekly Why, a place where we discuss world football's biggest questions that may go neglected and/or avoided. Ranging from the jovial to the melancholic, no subject matter is deemed off-limits.
Why Not End Your Club's Misery Sooner?
Demands for someone's resignation/removal are generally pretentious. It often means one's argument is shouted down from atop the mountain of moral superiority, and I fail to believe most possess the requisite climbing skills for issuing such ultimatums.
All too frequently, however, these demands cascade, enlarge and accelerate—as if an avalanche—and we are left having to address whether someone should abandon their chosen profession and livelihood because a bloc takes umbrage with their employment.
Sometimes the requests are warranted, other times not so much. In either event, once pressure builds to that certain immeasurable point, conventionally, something (or in this case someone) must go.
Interestingly in the Premier League, a shift has happened: Managers are pre-empting public sentiment and offering their own resignations. You would think only embattled managers would offer their resignations (because who jumps from a ship that isn't sinking), and clubs would accept their willingness to move forward, but they aren't.
On two occasions this season, clubs have elected to foregone requests and kept their manager aboard against his will.
Despite Jose Mourinho incessantly telling journalists he was willing to stay at Chelsea for as long as Roman Abramovich wanted him, reports—as exemplified by the Daily Express' James Dickenson—suggest after the Blues' 2-1 defeat away to West Ham United in October, the Portuguese offered his resignation to his board, and the action was denied.
A legendary figure at the west London club, it is more than possible Chelsea's board were uninterested in letting go of the former Real Madrid boss immediately following their fantastic 2014/15 season. Less than two months after visiting West Ham, Mourinho was sacked parted ways with the club by "mutual consent."
Communicating, orchestrating and intimately involved with the everyday operation of running a football club, it stands to reason experienced managers know when changes are required a particular dressing room—even if that change is them.
To offer your resignation is, in effect, an admission of disarray.
For a world-class manager, who won the league season prior and wasn't familiar with negative results, Mourinho must have sensed something was awry with his contingent of players. Even though some were clearly underperforming, removing double-digit footballers is never practical; the simplest solution is changing managers.
"Maybe #mufc are trying to get Van Gaal to see out the season because there's a clause preventing Mourinho from taking over a PL team *now*?
— Andrew Gaffney (@GaffneyVLC) January 25, 2016"
Chelsea could have acted in tandem with Mourinho's wishes in October, but they backed their manager (maybe showing too much faith in their players' professionalism) and the subsequent two months scuttled their top-four ambitions.
Whether sacking Mourinho was a brilliant long-term strategy remains to be seen—I tend to think it wasn't. It was painstakingly obvious, though, that anything but his removal in the short term might have seen Chelsea relegated; Mourinho knew that, his players also and Chelsea waited as long as they could.
Another high-profile manager who reportedly offered his resignation is Louis van Gaal. Manchester United's boss, per the Guardian's Jamie Jackson, offered to leave his post, but executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward rejected his proposal. Similar to Mourinho with Chelsea, why are United attempting to save something that clearly isn't working?
Chelsea had to consider their future, and gave Mourinho every chance, but Van Gaal isn't the long-term manager for the Red Devils. If the Dutchman senses, internally, an untenable situation and the time has arrived for a change, after 25 years of management, that feeling surely must be respected.
Instead, Woodward is placing the rest of 2015/16 in danger. More than likely the 64-year-old will leave in the summer, but why not end the collective misery sooner?
Unlike in west London, there is no love affair with Van Gaal and Manchester United supporters, accepting the resignation means finding an interim, but if the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager is a square peg being forced into a role hole, only further heartbreak can result.
Finding the reverse is finding your nearest rumour mill. We are inundated with managers doing everything to keep their jobs. Have managers willing to leave, then being rejected by their club, is incredibly peculiar.
Maybe one needs a certain level of respect in the game—like Mourinho and Van Gaal—to be so brazen? Maybe it's clubs who are unwilling to press the restart button? Maybe clubs would rather sack managers than have them resign, to maintain the illusion of power? Maybe it's a combination of all three mixed with unique factors?
Either way, I find ignoring them strange.
Should your boss smell signs of unrest in the dressing room and announce his desire to resign, keeping them past their due date—even if a tough decision—doesn't seem wise.
Last Weekly: Premier League, Technology and the Idiocy of 'Accepting' Human Error | Why Do We Tolerate Correctable Mistakes?
*Stats via WhoScored.com; transfer fees via Soccerbase where not noted.
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