Jose Mourinho is back: Back to his old self. Back in the hunt for trophies. Back to his devilish, mischievous best
Focused and firmly in control again, Mourinho is on to something good and tonight he gets the chance to reach a final - yet another final – with his new club
HE is back.
Back to his old self. Back in the hunt for trophies. Back to his devilish, mischievous best.
Jose Mourinho, what with his latest grade-one haircut from the Lowry Hotel barber, is looking razor sharp again.
The good behaviour bond is almost into a third month, trouble-free after serving a one-match ban for booting a water bottle when he had a wobbly against West Ham.
Focused, and firmly in control again, Mourinho is on to something good.
Tonight he gets the chance to reach a final - yet another final - with his new club Manchester United.
Hull, with their priorities narrowed down to somehow staying in the Premier League under Marco Silva, stand in their way.
Already 2-0 down from the first leg, they are unlikely to be able to put up too much of a fight.
Mourinho, serial finalist at Porto, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Chelsea, knows what it takes to survive grippy second legs.
The trip to the KCOM will be no different.
Mourinho, the ultimate trophy hunter, is eyeing up silverware against Southampton next month.
The Community Shield won, narrowly, with victory over Leicester City at Wembley in August is already on display.
Putting the EFL Cup alongside it would look pretty good, too.
It would represent a start, with Mourinho and Manchester United on to something good again after the confused, chaotic reign of Louis Van Gaal.
The FA Cup win, secured against Crystal Palace in May, has almost been forgotten.
It is history, something belonging to another era, a period before the Special One arrived at Old Trafford.
The League Cup is Mourinho's traditional marker, a message to the rest of the Premier League that he is in English football on business.
He won three of them at Chelsea, with victories in 2005, 2007 and 2015.
If Mourinho reaches the final and goes on to beat Southampton, he will equal Sir Alex Ferguson and Bob Paisley's record of four wins in the competition.
Do that, and he really will be back.