Mourinho To Test If One Man Is Bigger Than Man U

The FA Cup final at Wembley is the grandest stage English football has to offer, but for Louis Van Gaal it was the setting for a farewell.

Winning the venerable pot was never going to be enough to keep him in his job. It might be the oldest cup competition in the world but it's no longer enough for Manchester United.

A record-squalling 12th success was cause for celebrations, but for the fans and more significantly the owners, this was a consolation prize.

Van Gaal may have delivered the first trophy since Sir Alex Ferguson left such a void in the Old Trafford dugout but it could not conceal the failings elsewhere in a season of frustration.

In his second full season, Van Gaal's United have regressed, finishing fifth and outside the Champions League places regained in his first year. In Europe they were hapless, hustled out of the Champions League and then the Europa League.

Leicester's triumph simply added embarrassment to a club and manager who had lavished £250m on underachievement (though United were not alone in being exposed).

Nor has there been sufficient style to make up for the lack of substance. Old Trafford has hummed with discontent all season at the cautious style as well as the results.

Van Gaal will argue - he's always willing to argue - that he has delivered progress, not least in the emergence of Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Cup-winning goal scorer Jesse Lingard. Youth, as the club regularly reminds its shareholders, is in United's DNA.

Nevertheless the owners, the Glazer family, have decided to twist rather than stick. Sacking a manager for the second time in three seasons may go against the grain at a club that had the same one for a generation.

The Glazers and their senior executive Ed Woodward can argue with substance that Van Gaal was given every chance. He has not been undermined from within, on or off-the-record, and they were desperate for him to succeed and see a succession plan that ended with Ryan Giggs reaching fruition.

But ultimately they did not trust that he could meet their targets in the final year of his contract. They are not willing to take the risk of a second successive season outside the Champions League. (That matters for more than simple pride, carrying a financial penalty of around £20m from kit supplier Adidas.)

So the club that once appointed managers for life is turning to its fourth in three years, and one who may make the upheaval of recent season seem tranquil by comparison

For some senior figures inside United, Jose Mourinho is not the answer they were hoping to come up with. They distrust his combustible nature and are not convinced that he shares the club's creed of youth development.

What he does care about is winning, and he is as close to guaranteeing improvement as there is, assuming last season's Chelsea meltdown was an aberration.

His ego and pragmatic football may not fit United's romantic self-image, but three seasons of frustration and the demands of the bottom line, have left Old Trafford ready to compromise.

Mourinho is also a decent riposte to Manchester City's appointment of Pep Guardiola, his old nemesis from their days at the helm of Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively, but it has been forced by failure.

At Old Trafford they say no one man is bigger than the club. Mourinho is about to test that theory.