When it comes to modern day players who are considered Manchester United legends there are few who are more revered than French midfielder Eric “The King” Cantona. The now 50 year old United legend scored 64 in his 143 games for the Reds after joining them from rivals Leeds United. Many of his goals were of the spectacular variety and continue to grace numerous highlight reels since he has retired from the game. Cantona won 4 Premier League crowns, 2 FA Cups and 3 Charity Shields as well as coming 3rd in the Ballon D’Or in 1993. So his trophy haul as a United player speaks for itself.
After getting off to a worse start than predecessors David Moyes and LVG, Cantona has encouraged United’s Portuguese boss to “hang in there” and for all involved to be patient including the boss. Speaking as his role as Football Commisioner for Eurosport Cantona had this to say about his former club as quoted by ESPNFC,
“I understand your frustration,”
“The Special One [Mourinho], the Swedish One [Zlatan Ibrahimovic], the expensive one [Paul Pogba], the one with the hair transplant [Wayne Rooney]! All these ones they don’t make a whole yet.
“But give them a little credit, football is not a f—ing science! Plus Mourinho’s nemesis Pep [Guardiola] and Arsene [Wenger] are co-leading the Premiership [Premier League] so I strongly doubt Jose is going to give up.
“Hang in there Jose! Could be worse — you could be coaching Sunderland!”
So Eric Cantona believes in Jose despite the extremely dodgy patch of form the club are currently in having not won in the League in 4 games. As they travel to the Liberty Stadium to face strugglers Swansea City they are coming off a very disappointing loss in the Europa League to Fenerbahce on Thursday night. To add to United’s woes they have a poor record vs the Swans lately having lost 3 of their past 4 games against the Welsh side.
Wayne Rooney could be restored to the United line-up after scoring a super goal in Turkey on Thursday and many fans are clamouring for Henrikh Mkhitaryan to get a start. It will certainly be interesting to see which line-up Jose starts the match with.