"Before we start telling the players that we're going for the title, how do you actually see this team?"
Ethan asked the question carefully.
Mourinho had not expected it.
For a moment, he had no answer.
"Ever since we've started playing Premier League sides, especially the stronger ones, you've relied heavily on mentality," Ethan continued.
"You want the players fighting from the first minute. You want them pressing immediately after losing possession. When we're behind, you demand that they keep pushing until they equalise."
"There's nothing wrong with any of that."
Ethan paused.
"But now we're top of the Premier League."
"So how do we approach the second half of the season?"
"What kind of mentality should we have?"
"More importantly, how will other teams approach us now?"
"Have you thought about that?"
Mourinho fell silent.
This time, Ethan's question had genuinely caught him.
Mourinho had been a manager for three years.
During those three years, his teams had repeatedly exceeded expectations, winning promotions and championships in the lower divisions.
But the Premier League was different.
Every team here possessed quality.
New Manchester United's unbeaten first half of the season had been remarkable, but Mourinho could not completely dismiss the possibility that some opponents had underestimated them or simply had not understood how to play against them.
That excuse no longer existed.
Half a season was enough.
New Manchester United had proved their quality.
That was excellent news for the club.
It also meant every opponent would now prepare differently.
Most of the heavy victories earlier in the season had shared one characteristic.
The opposition had tried to play.
They pushed forward.
They left space.
And New Manchester United destroyed them in transition.
That would become increasingly rare.
Teams now knew exactly how dangerous Mourinho's side were.
They would not keep walking into the same trap.
"I've seen supporters praising the team's fighting spirit," Ethan said.
"They say everyone works harder than the opposition and refuses to give up."
"That's good."
"But I've also been thinking about something."
"What happens if fighting spirit is all people think we have?"
"What happens when an opponent sits deep and refuses to give us the kind of match where intensity alone can make the difference?"
Mourinho understood immediately.
Mentality was essential.
But if a team needed an emotional surge to win every difficult match, something was wrong.
Tactics were supposed to create control.
Quality was supposed to create solutions.
Spirit should strengthen those things, not replace them.
Looking at the squad objectively, Mourinho believed New Manchester United's best eleven was probably among the five strongest in the Premier League.
Across the entire first-team squad, however, they were arguably among the top three.
Manchester United and Arsenal might possess more established stars.
Chelsea had enormous individual quality.
But New Manchester United had exceptional depth and far greater cohesion than Chelsea.
So why did Mourinho still demand such ferocious pressing from the front?
Why did he constantly insist on protecting the defence before anything else?
The answer was simple.
He was afraid of conceding.
Yet after seventeen Premier League matches, New Manchester United had allowed only eleven goals.
That was the best defensive record in the division.
Remove the three conceded during the chaotic spell at Anfield, and the number fell to eight.
So why did Mourinho still behave as though the defence was permanently one mistake away from disaster?
Then the answer came to him.
He still thought like the manager of a newly promoted team.
For years, Mourinho had built his success around that mentality.
Protect yourself first.
Stay compact.
Concede as little as possible.
Then trust the attacking players to decide the match.
That approach had carried New Manchester United through the lower divisions.
But perhaps they had now outgrown it.
Ethan believed that if Mourinho loosened the attacking structure slightly, gave the front four greater freedom, and allowed them to move and combine more instinctively, New Manchester United's attack could reach another level without necessarily sacrificing defensive stability.
"I've often wondered why clubs like Everton or Newcastle can have excellent seasons without ever quite becoming part of the Premier League's real elite," Ethan said.
"Sometimes it's not simply about ability."
"It's mentality."
"They can play a weaker opponent and behave like the stronger side. They'll control possession, attack, take risks."
"But then Manchester United, Arsenal, or Liverpool appear on the fixture list, and suddenly they change."
"They become cautious."
"They worry about the opponent."
"They abandon the football that made them successful in the first place."
Ethan looked at Mourinho.
"A genuinely top side can't spend every big match behaving as though it has something to fear."
Mourinho said nothing.
He was thinking.
Ethan's point went beyond tactics.
New Manchester United were already strong enough tactically.
What they now lacked was the mentality of a club that expected others to adapt to them.
That did not mean becoming reckless.
It meant imposing their own identity regardless of the opponent.
A strong team did not enter every major fixture asking, "How do we survive what they do?"
It asked, "How are they going to stop us?"
There was a difference between being a dangerous challenger and behaving like a champion.
A challenger could win through courage.
A champion needed authority.
Ethan wanted New Manchester United to develop the second.
The club had already gone from outsider to contender.
Now it needed to learn how to act like one.
Mourinho suddenly felt as though several ideas had fallen into place at once.
His thinking had always begun with the match in front of him.
How to stop the opponent.
How to exploit a weakness.
How to win.
Ethan was looking at something larger.
How should New Manchester United evolve from an ambitious club into an elite one?
If that was the objective, perhaps losing one match against Arsenal was not the worst thing that could happen.
A defeat would cost three points.
But if the process forced the team to develop a stronger identity, the long-term reward could be far greater.
Mourinho looked across European football.
The biggest clubs might counter-attack when circumstances demanded it.
They might defend deep for periods.
But they did not define themselves by fear.
They did not abandon their football every time they faced another strong team.
Elite clubs expected to impose themselves.
That was part of what made them elite.
"I think I know what we need to do," Mourinho said.
There was confidence in his voice again.
Ethan smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
The two men stood side by side, looking towards the construction site.
"That's going to be the best stadium in the world," Ethan said.
He did not say it modestly.
He genuinely believed it.
Mourinho nodded.
He had seen Old Trafford.
He had been to Highbury.
He had visited famous grounds across Europe.
But to him, the new stadium already meant something different.
He had been in Manchester for more than three years now.
New Manchester United no longer felt like somewhere he worked.
It felt like his club.
His players.
His supporters.
His project.
There had been offers.
Chelsea, among others, had shown interest in him.
Mourinho had rejected them.
There was still something unfinished here.
"We've also got the best supporters in the world," Ethan said.
Mourinho nodded again.
The fans had been there from the beginning.
They had watched the club climb division by division.
They had lived through every promotion, every setback, every unlikely victory.
They were not simply spectators to the club's history.
They were part of it.
Ethan looked towards the stadium again.
"And José, I want us to play the best football in the world."
That was a much heavier statement.
Mourinho understood exactly what it implied.
The best football was not simply attacking football.
Nor was it simply winning.
It meant quality.
Identity.
Control.
Intensity.
Intelligence.
Something recognisable.
Something opponents feared.
Something supporters believed belonged to them.
Mourinho nodded.
That ambition belonged to both of them.
...
After leaving the stadium site, Mourinho returned immediately to Newton Heath.
He called the entire coaching staff into a meeting.
By the end of the tactical discussion, the plan for Arsenal had been decided.
So had the starting eleven.
Mourinho also changed the focus of the next two days' training.
More time would be devoted to attacking patterns.
Cassell and Moniz were delighted.
They knew exactly how much attacking talent the squad possessed.
Kaká.
Palacio.
Robben.
Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ribéry.
Drogba.
Villa.
There was enormous potential in that group.
The question was how much Mourinho was willing to unleash.
The coaching staff began refining the movements of the front four.
Palacio's close control made him particularly dangerous when operating near defenders and combining in congested areas.
Kaká, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Robben were different.
They needed room to accelerate.
Forcing all three into crowded central areas would waste some of their best qualities.
Instead, they could drop away from the defensive line.
Move towards the wings.
Receive between the lines.
Attack from deeper positions.
Create space for one another.
The staff also began working more seriously on the second, third, and even fourth phases of attacks.
One move did not have to end when the first pass into the penalty area failed.
If the ball was cleared, Beckham could recycle it.
If the defence stepped out, Kaká could attack the newly opened space.
If the opposition shifted towards one flank, the play could be switched rapidly to the other.
The more Mourinho and his staff discussed it, the clearer something became.
There was still a great deal of attacking potential inside this team.
And using it did not necessarily mean weakening the defence.
As long as the distances between the lines remained compact, the structure could survive.
Attack with more freedom.
Defend with the same organisation.
That was the next step.
Then Mourinho raised another problem.
The African Cup of Nations.
January was approaching.
Several important players would soon leave for international duty.
Drogba.
Kolo Touré.
Yaya Touré.
Essien.
The biggest concern was central midfield.
De Rossi had performed extremely well whenever selected.
He was already placing serious pressure on Essien for a starting position.
Once Essien and Yaya Touré left, De Rossi would naturally become the first-choice defensive midfielder.
But who backed him up?
Redondo was effectively semi-retired.
John Obi Mikel had been compared with Vieira.
Michael Johnson had drawn comparisons with Gerrard.
Both were talented.
Both were also extremely young.
Fàbregas was primarily a playmaker.
So was Beckham.
The club suddenly looked thin in one very specific position.
National-team camps would begin in early January, with the tournament itself running through the following weeks.
Both Ghana and Ivory Coast had qualified.
If either side went deep into the competition, New Manchester United could be without key players until late February.
Nearly two months.
And there was always the risk of fatigue or injury before they returned.
The timing could hardly have been worse.
January and February were crowded with fixtures.
Premier League.
FA Cup.
League Cup.
UEFA Cup.
New Manchester United could be competing on four fronts.
De Rossi alone could not handle that workload.
If he were injured, Mourinho would have a serious problem.
The coaching staff agreed on the first step.
Speak with the Ghanaian and Ivorian football associations.
See whether the players could report slightly later to their national-team camps, as had sometimes been negotiated in the past.
If that failed, the club would need another solution.
Nobody wanted to rush into the transfer market.
New Manchester United already had promising midfielders in the academy.
Mikel in particular had been excellent in youth and League Cup matches.
The Nigerian's development had taken an interesting path.
He had originally been regarded as an attacking midfielder.
Technically, he was excellent.
But he lacked the acceleration and one-on-one dribbling Mourinho wanted from an advanced attacker.
So the club gradually moved him deeper.
They retained his technique and passing ability while developing the defensive side of his game.
His physique helped enormously.
So did his work rate.
He covered ground well.
Moved laterally across midfield.
Intercepted passes.
And once he won possession, he could distribute the ball with far greater quality than most defensive midfielders his age.
Mourinho's preference was therefore to wait.
If the club could solve the problem internally, that was the better option.
Signing another defensive midfielder in January might solve a two-month problem while creating a long-term one.
Once Essien and Yaya returned, the first team could suddenly become overcrowded in that position.
There was no need to buy simply for the sake of buying.
Use the academy first.
Recruit only if necessary.
Once that decision was made, every relevant department at Newton Heath began preparing for what came next.
The promoted-team mentality was disappearing.
New Manchester United were beginning to think like contenders.
(To be continued.)
◇◇◇
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)