Champions League draw: Distorted logic could yet see Jose Mourinho salvage his legacy at Manchester United

The prospect of Manchester United winning the Champions League is one as farfetched as them being in the competition next season, but if Mourinho chooses to favour Europe they just can’t be ruled out of the running

It hasn’t been a good 24 hours for Jose Mourinho’s long-term future, let alone his season. After a chastening 3-1 defeat by Liverpool left Manchester United 11 points off the top four - a gap at this point that no club has ever turned around - they were then drawn against Paris Saint-Germain in the last 16 of the Champions League.

Neymar and Kylian Mbappe may as well be express trains coming down the track, such is the ominous feeling around it all.

The line regularly repeated around Old Trafford now is that Mourinho - just like David Moyes and Louis van Gaal before him - will only be relieved of his job when it is confirmed that Champions League qualification for next season is mathematically impossible.

All logic would suggest that is itself now inevitable.

Except, the Champions League is ironically a competition where logic only rarely reigns.

That is the fundamental nature of all cup competitions, and not even one as prestigious as the European Cup can escape the curious nuances of knockout football in that way.

Winners as recent - and relevant - as Chelsea 2012 and Liverpool 2005 are the proof of that.

And even if an argument based on the idea that “it’s still just a cup competition” is fairly flimsy, it isn’t entirely based on that.

Perhaps the main wonder with United’s season now is whether Mourinho starts to really prioritise the Champions League over the league, and to what extent.

That can yet make a big difference.

There can at this point be little debate that Mourinho’s approach is years behind the sophisticated tactics that dominate the top end of the game and the Champions League - not least as regards his limited use of pressing - but even years of work can be undone by the simplest strategy on single nights.

Mourinho could yet save his United career - but it would take some doing (AFP/Getty)

Neymar and Mbappe can one of those nights.

And, as even some of the displays this season reflect, Mourinho does remain capable of revving the side for big games. He can get those responses, something that can be all the more effective against a team that does seem to lack a deeper emotional core, like PSG.

This, too, is why logic just doesn’t influence the competition as much. It is partly why Chelsea and Liverpool won it in the last 14 years, despite relatively atrocious domestic seasons. A handful of properly good performances, some tight games and a lot of luck can go a long way.

Take the very way United got to the last 16. Marouane Fellaini’s goal against Young Boys was one of those slices of luck, since it should have been ruled out for handball.

There is also another, much grander narrative to this.

A proper challenge for the Champions League would not just save Mourinho’s job. It would save his legacy at the club, and completely transform it.

Winning United’s fourth European Cup would, quite simply, make everything else irrelevant.

It would be one of the club’s greatest moments, and turn him into a United legend, not to mention the legendary feat of becoming one of just three of their managers to win the prize their two greatest managers were so obsessed with; that has so enriched and deepened the very history of the club.

The Champions League draw for the last-16 has been confirmed (AP)

And if he manages to get into the quarter-finals, and then gets a sniff this might be on, it might have a transformative effect on Mourinho.

It might rev him.

It’s just that, even if victory would indeed make everything else irrelevant, “everything else” is why it remains such a long shot; why it seems fanciful.

Why it requires a distortion of logic.