MANCHESTER UNITED FANS watching on last night as Chelsea delivered a masterful counter-attacking performance to beat Manchester City 1-0 would be forgiven for thinking ‘what if…’

What if the game wasn’t almost irrelevant from their club’s viewpoint, given that they have long since given up hopes of winning the title?

What if one of the men integral to Chelsea’s inspired play wasn’t overseeing this exceptional performance, virtually perfect in its tactical execution?

What if, instead, Jose Mourinho was currently the manager of Manchester United?

It’s always easy in hindsight to point out a club’s past mistakes, but the decision to appoint David Moyes to replace Alex Ferguson as Manchester United manager is looking increasingly erroneous by the day.

Let’s be clear on one issue, though — David Moyes is not a bad manager. At Everton, he proved time and again that he was a steady pair of hands at the very least, while enjoying one especially memorable season whereby the club secured a top-four place ahead of more feted and higher-spending rivals.

However, for a team of Manchester United’s high standards, the suitability of a coach with no major-trophy-winning background and almost no Champions League experience was questionable at best.

That said, taking over from Ferguson was always going to be a very difficult task. United, at least before the arrival of Juan Mata, hadn’t strengthened, whereas Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City and arguably even Everton all look significantly better now compared with last season.

And given the considerable weakness United have demonstrated in recent times, it is unlikely that Ferguson or anyone else who took over could have launched a sustained title challenge with the club this season (unless, in this increasingly hypothetical scenario, they somehow managed to persuade Ed Woodward to spend heavily in pre-season).

However, a place in the Premier League’s top four come the end of the campaign was almost the least of their ambitions, and if Saturday’s toothless performance against Stoke City was anything to go by, missing out on this all-important goal looks a distinct possibility.

It was, admittedly, the type of performance the Red Devils were not averse to under Ferguson. They sometimes looked equally complacent and out of sorts against inferior teams during the legendary Scot’s era, yet invariably on such occasions, despite not playing well, they showed the requisite attitude and intensity to produce a late goal that would crucially get them the desired result. But whereas late winners were virtually a routine occurrence previously, this season, they have scored just twice in the final five minutes of matches, with one of those games being the emphatic 4-1 loss to City.

And again, their once-customary intensity was missing from the side’s game with Stoke at the weekend, as it has been for much of the season. Consequently, it’s hard not to attribute this issue at least partially to Moyes’ relationship with the players, and the inevitable lack of fear or respect he commands in comparison with his predecessor.

(Moyes has experienced an indifferent start to his career as Manchester United manager — Nigel French/EMPICS Sport)

Granted, there were some mitigating factors as to why they were so poor at the weekend. They were unfortunate in that the first goal could legitimately be described as a fluke, with Charlie Adam’s auspicious effort taking an unkind ricochet off Michael Carrick before hitting the back of the net. Moreover, as a manager, it’s difficult to legislate for both your starting centre-backs picking up injuries during a game, while it’s unlikely that any of the Red Devils’ three star players — Juan Mata, Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney — were 100% fit.

Yet what will frustrate Manchester United fans, perhaps more than anything, is Moyes’ reaction to their eighth loss of the season. The 50-year-old coach’s post-match interviews following dispiriting losses are increasingly beginning to resemble a stuck record. Just as he did following their recent defeat by Tottenham, Moyes insisted that United played “well” against Stoke, while in the reverse fixture with the London side where they drew 2-2, Moyes suggested the outcome was a “good result”.

It’s difficult to imagine Ferguson ever describing United drawing as a “good result,” while it’s virtually impossible to conceive of Mourinho expressing similar sentiments.

This attitude also gives an insight into Moyes’ innately cautious nature, which has been evident to a degree in nearly every United display this season, and seems one major difference, in contrast with previous altogether more intrinsically daring incarnations of the team. Their deeply pragmatic and ultimately unsuccessful strategy to hold onto a one-goal advantage in the League Cup semi-final against Sunderland at Old Trafford, for instance, was uncharacteristic of the relentless attack and ambition favoured by classic United sides in such circumstances.

Furthermore, of late, there is a hesitance and lack of ambition that characterises United’s play in general — the continual reluctance of their ageing and injury-prone defence to hold a high line, the over-reliance on inefficient wingers such as Ashley Young to produce the type of accomplished delivery that they all too often fail to execute, the inability to create clear-cut chances against an ordinary enough Stoke team — these are all indicators as to why the team has unravelled so swiftly following their title-winning exploits last year.

Yet perhaps the most damning indictment of Moyes’ managerial weakness was highlighted in the aftermath of their loss to Newcastle. The Scot explained that he was planning to take Robin van Persie off with half an hour to go, however, with the team losing, he feared the wrath of the supporters’ excessive protests, thereby prompting him to keep the Dutch striker on for the full 90 minutes. United lost the game anyway, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Van Persie struggled with further injuries thereafter.

Conversely, one attribute that seems to distinguish the great managers is their willingness to make controversial decisions that show no regard for popular opinion. Alf Ramsey dropping Jimmy Greaves for England’s 1966 World Cup final is a classic example, while Alex Ferguson made equally bold decisions throughout his time at Old Trafford, from placing faith in youngsters at the expense of accomplished pros such as Paul Ince in the mid-1990s, to dropping Wayne Rooney for last year’s Champions League quarter-final. And similarly, Mourinho is the master of making unpopular decisions and subsequently emerging relatively unscathed.

(Ferguson has continued to be a visible presence at United matches since his retirement — Martin Rickett/PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Irrespective of whether you think it was right or wrong, Mourinho selling Juan Mata – Chelsea’s Player of the Season for the past two years — to a rival team, undoubtedly took considerable courage and confidence in his personal vision for the club. And it was by no means an anomaly either — he dropped Real Madrid’s already legendary goalkeeper Iker Casillas during his stint as a manager in La Liga, and even going back to his time at Benfica in an uncannily similar situation to the Mata saga, he dropped one of the club’s star players, Karel Poborský, for his unwillingness to track back and indifference towards playing out wide rather than in his preferred central position.

Furthermore, he commands a certain aura and sense of awe that Moyes currently cannot match. When asked who is the best manager he ever played under in a 2011 interview with with BBC Sport, Emmanuel Adebayor had no hesitation in singling out Mourinho.

“He [Mourinho] is the best, then Arsene Wenger,” the striker said. “He prepares his players sometimes like you are going to war. He gives you that spirit and motivation.

“I have huge respect for Arsene Wenger, but Jose Mourinho could not accept losing to Birmingham in a [League Cup] final. No chance. He knows how to motivate you. He knows how to give you everything it takes to win it.

“Even if it means laying down my life to win this cup, I will do it, because I want to win it so much. That is the difference.

“Arsenal is a fantastic club, all the players are young, but at the end of the day you have to be harsh and be aggressive.

“You have to instill a mentality where you think you have to win, win, win every day. That’s the difference with Arsenal.”

This obsession with winning is invariably evident in Mourinho’s behaviour, and was clear both in the grim determination the London club persistently displayed in ending Man City’s 20-game unbeaten run at the Etihad, as well as in his post-match reaction to the side’s disappointing draw with a somewhat fortuitous West Ham outfit.  He was incensed by the Hammers’ negative performance and described events as if they were some kind of abominable miscarriage of justice.

Moyes, by contrast, continues to calmly insist that his team “played well” when reacting to a setback, and therein lies one big difference between the two. Moyes is somewhat accustomed to below-par results, whereas they usually come as a shock to his Chelsea counterpart. Accordingly, with sports psychology more prominent than ever in the modern game, these contrasting mentalities cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the two clubs’ respective fortunes.

And on a related note, one of the most commonly cited reasons as to why Mourinho never got the United job, which he reportedly desperately wanted, was on account of his temperament and tendency to act somewhat ignominiously at times. Yet, it seems odd that the enormously lucrative brand that is Manchester United would reject someone essentially for not being a nice enough guy, especially when Ferguson, with his compulsive bullying of referees, was no stranger to disreputable actions himself.

(Mourinho poses with fans for a picture prior to yesterday’s game — Martin Rickett/PA Wire/Press Association Images)

There was ostensibly further concern, given the prevailing theory that Mourinho is a short-term manager. At virtually every club he has coached, the Portuguese boss has impressed initially, before leaving the team in a less-than-healthy position with too many players past their prime and too few adequate replacements available. Yet even if this were the case, United’s highly flawed squad of players were surely in dire need of someone who could have the type of immediate morale-boosting impact that Mourinho specialises in providing. Moyes, on the other hand, with his inherently pragmatic approach, was patently ill-suited to taking over a team of vastly overachieving players.

Of course, the ex-Everton boss is still learning and may eventually come good and achieve some success, yet for a club of Man United’s ambition and proud legacy, the supporters will wonder why they didn’t opt for the obvious ready-made replacement in Mourinho, rather than someone who was always going to take time to adjust to the demands that such a prestigious position entails. Mourinho, therefore, may not be a nice guy, but as a coach, he possesses that critical Ferguson-like genius.

Like football? Follow TheScore.ie’s dedicated Twitter account @football_ie >

Joe Kinnear resigns as Newcastle director of football>

Is Juan Mata the heir to Eric Cantona’s Old Trafford throne?>