Jose Mourinho will succeed Louis van Gaal as Manchester United manager, according to the sister of former Inter Milan president Massimo Moratti.
Since the turn of the year, there has been continued speculation about the former Chelsea manager returning to management at Old Trafford.
Thursday’s embarrassing Europa League loss to FC Midtjylland has further weakened Van Gaal’s position and Bedy Moratti, sister of former Inter president Massimo, appears to have inadvertently revealed Mourinho will soon succeed him.
The honorary president of supporters’ group Inter Club was door-stepped by calciomercato.com at a lunch attended by the former Nerazzurri boss and asked whether the club missed him.
“He’s missed as a person, but right now he’s happy, he’s going to Manchester,” Moratti said of the Special One.
Mourinho is already as short as 1/5 with bookmakers to become United’s next manager, while Van Gaal is overwhelming favourite to become the next Premier League manager out of a job.
On Saturday morning, reports in the tabloid media suggested that Edward Woodward had made a ‘frantic’ phone call to Mourinho’s agent after hearing of his interest in returning to Milan.
The Dutchman’s side were embarrassed 2-1 in Denmark on Thursday and travel to Shrewsbury on Monday looking to reach the FA Cup quarter-finals.
After the disaster in Denmark on Thursday, the vast majority of United fans would welcome Mourinho with open arms now, something that was unthinkable three months ago.
What has been interesting to watch is the change of opinion of Ryan Giggs but United fans over the same period. In December, when United were in the midst of an eight game winless streak, most United fans would have welcomed the news that Giggs was replacing van Gaal.
But that did not happen as news leaked out that Giggs did not want to take over as interim manager again. That was a miscalculation by Giggs as the United fans have turned away from the Manchester legend and have embraced the Special One instead.
As a result, Giggs might never get a chance to manage the club he grew up at again.
