Jose Mourinho has taken a swipe at Paul Pogba and Ed Woodward over the structure of Manchester United football operation.
Mourinho has stayed away from public eye since his sacking by the club a week before Christmas but he gave an exclusive interview to beIN Sports on Thursday afternoon and suggested some clubs need to change the way they operate due to the times we live in.
SEE ALSO: How Arsenal's lineup could look like with Denis Suarez after January transfer window
The Portuguese's relationships with a number of United's players appeared to have broken down during the final months of his Old Trafford reign and he suggested clubs now need to have sporting directors in place to prevent that from reoccurring.
“In the modern world, in modern football, news is when you have problems,” Mourinho said.
“That's news and in modern football, I don't like to say that it is a problem between the coach and the player, I think it is a problem between the coach without a structure behind him and the player.
“We are not anymore in the time when the coach by himself is powerful enough to cope and to have a relationship of education and sometimes confrontation with players that are not the best professionals.
“The coaches nowadays, they need a structure, they need the club organised in a certain way where instead of being a manager… there cannot be a direct relationship between the player and the coach anymore because step by step it is going to arrive into a situation where you must have hard decisions.
“And who is to blame? The clubs without a structure to create a situation where the player is not anymore in a situation of a direct relationship with the manager, but yes a relation with the structure.
“A club must have an owner, a president, a CEO, a director executive, a sports director or a football director and then the manager.
SEE ALSO: How Arsenal's lineup could look like with Denis Suarez after January transfer window
“And this is a structure that can cope with all the problems that modernity is bringing to all of us, so, for me, a club must be very well organised to cope with all of these kinds of situations, where the manager is only the manager and not the man who is trying to keep the discipline or is trying to educate the players.”
This article was most recently revised and updated 4 years ago
