Paul Scholes Comments on Jose Mourinho Before Liverpool vs. Manchester United

Former Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes thinks the team is still struggling to form an identity under new manager Jose Mourinho.

Scholes provided his candid assessment of the new boss ahead of the crunch clash with Liverpool on Monday night; United are three points behind their great rivals going into the game after an inconsistent beginning to the Premier League season.

Speaking about his former side, Scholes accused the new boss of lacking ruthlessness in the way he sets the team up, per Simon Stone of BBC Sport:

"

He was not ruthless enough in the off-season.

There is so much confusion about who should play.

What I saw of Mourinho at Chelsea, he had 13 or 14 players who played every week. He never rested players even in the League Cup or whatever competition he was in.

With United it is still a settling-in period—it is going to take a bit of time for them to knit together and see what they are about.

Is there an identity to the team yet? I don't think there is.

"

Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

United certainly haven’t outlined a definitive style in the nascent stages of Mourinho’s tenure. While they possess so many attacking threats in Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford and Juan Mata, the Portuguese has yet to see the team thrive consistently in the final third.

The players aforementioned all need freedom to be at their absolute best, and that’s at odds with Mourinho’s own principles. In the past, he’s been pragmatic and defensively minded in how the side is set up, although a club like United is synonymous with daring attacking football.

Questions about style may be valid, and eyebrows will be raised at the suggestion Mourinho hasn’t been ruthless in his decision-making.

Bleacher Report’s Paul Ansorge disagrees with that assessment:

"

What's really odd about this is there are plenty of legitimate criticisms you could aim at Mourinho's early spell in charge. But this?

— Paul (@UtdRantcast) October 17, 2016"

While Scholes has been critical of United’s beginning to the 2016-17 season, in Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp, he sees someone who can potentially inspire the Reds to the title.

“There is a definite way about them,” said the 41-year-old. “You know how they are going to play: they are going to be quick; they are going to try to take the ball off you and try to score goals by flooding the box. …The form they are in, they look as good as any team in the league.” 

Matthew Ashton - AMA/Getty Images

While Klopp’s Liverpool are purring at the moment, his first year in charge wasn’t all plain sailing. The Reds took some knocks under his watch as they adapted to a new way of playing, and it’s only since getting a full pre-season done that they’ve kicked on to another level.

As we can see here courtesy of Sky Sports News HQ, overall Klopp has done a tremendous job at Anfield:

Mourinho is a different manager with different principles. Although, like Klopp, it will take time for him to fully assess the squad he has at Old Trafford and formulate a way of playing that suits them the best. Given the success he’s had at FC Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid in the past, plenty points to the Portuguese doing so successfully eventually.

Scholes is not somebody who sits on the fence when it comes to his opinions, especially those focused on the club so close to his heart. At times such bluntness can be refreshing in an age of mundane and cliched punditry, although his negative assessment of United so early in the season is harsh.