Jose Mourinho received plenty of criticism for his Manchester United signings, but what about the players he allowed to leave the club during his short tenure at Old Trafford?
Mourinho has spoken publicly about the players he would have kept around had he arrived in Manchester sooner, with Angel di Maria and Danny Welbeck among them, but he embarked on a significant clearout after replacing Louis van Gaal in the dugout.
Here are all the players with Premier League minutes to their name who left United under Mourinho, and who replaced them. This means we’ve had to leave out the likes of Sam Johnstone and Ashley Fletcher, who earned minutes in the top two tiers, just not in a Manchester United shirt.
Victor Valdes
Valdes was gone in all but name long before Mourinho’s arrival, but the Spaniard didn’t officially leave until the summer of 2016, a full year after his second and final appearance for the club.
His exit gave more opportunities to young goalkeeper Joel Castro Pereira. Not many more, sure, but he did at least play 100 first-team minutes under Mourinho.
Nick Powell
Powell, of ‘subbed on for Juan Mata’ fame, is another whose time was more or less up before Mourinho arrived. He was never likely to earn a new deal but rebuilt his career with Wigan Athletic after his United release before joining Stoke City in the summer of 2019.
With the former Crewe man gone, you might think it meant more 90-minute run-outs for Mata. Wrong. The Spaniard was subbed off in 18 of his 19 starts in the 2016-17 season – presumably, the 19th would ordinarily have been Powell’s opportunity.
LvG substituted Mata for Nick Powell. Nick fucking Powell for Mata in an important tie. https://t.co/A04my1sal0
— Harsha (@VintageMUFC) May 4, 2016
Paddy McNair
Northern Ireland international McNair played a surprisingly high 27 games under Van Gaal, 24 of them in the league, but when he was shunted off to Sunderland with Donald Love it didn’t even seem to cause a ripple.
The Black Cats somehow turned a profit on him after relegation, while it’s hard to say who ‘replaced’ a man who didn’t have a settled position at Old Trafford (he maintained he was a creative midfielder while playing in defence, and everyone just seemed to nod along and pat him on the head) but it’s probably fair to say Scott McTominay got some of his minutes when breaking through in 2018.
Donald Love
Cost Sunderland seven figures after playing a whole 53 league minutes for United, and the…
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