Mark Langdon: Change of tune needed from Jose Mourinho and Ivan Toney

It is two months shy of 20 years since Jose Mourinho danced his way down the Old Trafford touchline celebrating Costinha's last-minute goal which took his Porto side past Manchester United in the Champions League as the fresh-faced 41-year-old catapulted himself to the top echelons of European football.

The BBC match report described the first 45 minutes as "a war of attrition" and referenced how Porto had been on the back foot for much of a tense encounter before Costinha pounced late to send the visitors through on a run which would see Mourinho lifting his first European Cup before heading off to Chelsea as the self-proclaimed Special One.

Football has changed in the 20 years since, but Mourinho is still serving up wars of attrition and seems to want to remain on the back foot in an era when most modern managers who are coaching at Europe's top table are determined to be progressive rather than reactive.

Mourinho was sacked as Roma's manager this week with the club ninth in Serie A, 22 points behind his former club Inter, and with the owners reportedly fed up with his preferred option of experienced players on high wages as well as his woeful behaviour in last season's Europa League final.

The only reason he lasted so long was that the majority of fans had a different view and were fully behind Mourinho, not least because he had delivered Roma's first European trophy since an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup win in 1961. That silverware was the new Europa Conference League and saw the Romans conquer Trabzonspor, Zorya Luhansk, CSKA Sofia, Bodo/Glimt (twice), Vitesse, Leicester and Feyenoord.

In other words it was a competition Roma were frontrunners for given that Tottenham were kicked out and there was no Spanish representation, but Mourinho still played like the underdog and the Italians beat Feyenoord in the final with little over 30 per cent possession.

For a man who was once built up as a tactical genius, the best coach in the world and an almost unstoppable force, Mourinho's football now looks fairly basic. 

For years he has seemed to do the same thing of defending deep and then relying on individuals in the attacking third to make the most of sporadic attacks rather than creating one of the slick, cohesive units which are commonplace in teams with nowhere near the level of Roma's wage bill.

Roma's tactics this season appear to be give the ball to Paulo Dybala or Romelu Lukaku and hope for the best. It just doesn't work at the top level and yet no sooner had Mourinho been sacked than he was somehow being linked with the jobs at Newcastle and Chelsea.

Mourinho's fame, it appears, will never fade, but if he wants to get back to competing for serious trophies there is an obvious solution - international tournaments.

It plays to many of his strengths. It's knockout football, you don't need to build a legacy or make significant progress with the youth team and, crucially, most of the football served up is the dour stuff Mourinho seems to relish. You must defend well and rely on key moments, which describes Mourinho's tactics perfectly.

Ivan Toney should show Brentford more respect

Brentford's social media proclaimed the return of the king as Ivan Toney prepares for his first game since serving an eight-month ban for breaching Football Association betting rules.

It's easy to understand why Brentford would be so excited. Toney is their best player and assuming he comes back in the same shape he should be going to the Euros with England because he is the second-best striker available to Gareth Southgate behind Harry Kane.

Brentford have toiled without his services, so his comments this week were awfully timed. "It''s obvious I want to play for a top club, everyone wants to play for a top club and fight for titles. Whether it's this January that is the right time for a club to come in and pay the right money, who knows?" said Toney.

The Bees have been brilliant for Toney and it's time for him to pay that back rather than think about transfers until the summer. 

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