Football: Jose Mourinho criticises younger generation of managers who gain praise for style but lack trophies

Former Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho. Photo / Photosport

Jose Mourinho appeared to have Mauricio Pochettino and Jurgen Klopp in his sights as the former Manchester United manager took a swipe at a younger generation of coaches who are lauded for their style of football but seldom win anything.

Pochettino, 46, has won admirers for the way his Tottenham Hotspur side play and is the favourite to succeed Mourinho as United's next permanent manager, despite never winning a trophy during his 10-year coaching career.

Klopp's Liverpool are currently top of the Premier League but the 51-year-old German - who is often praised for his attacking football - has yet to win a trophy during his three-and-a-half year spell at Anfield and last tasted leading silverware with Borussia Dortmund, with whom he won two Bundesliga titles and the German Cup in 2011 and 2012.

But Mourinho believes it is the coaches like him, Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti, who have won trophies over a sustained period, that are the ones who will be remembered as the Portuguese - whose defensive style of play has been criticised - launched a staunch defence of his football.

Mourinho, who was sacked by United a week before Christmas but has won 25 trophies during his management career, told BeIN SPORTS: "One thing is image, another thing is communication, another is a good structure behind and another thing is to win and get good results.

"It's very easy to play 'well' and not win, it's very easy to be behind a certain idea of a certain football without results. The people win and the people that win consistently, because you can win isolated and then disappear, have a different idea about that.

"If you speak about Guardiola, about Ancelotti, about the ones in which I belong that have a career of victories for a long, long period, where are the young ones in terms of a real impact of results? Where are they?"

Mourinho, 56 next week, was understood to be dismayed by reports linking Pochettino with the United post during his final weeks in the job, which led to his agent, Jorge Mendes, releasing a bizarre statement in which he claimed the Manchester club was "very happy" with him. Mourinho was sacked less than a fortnight later.

Yet Mourinho told BeIN, for whom he is doing some work as a pundit during the Asian Cup, that he hopes the next generation of managers prioritise results over style of play in another apparent dig at Pochettino and Klopp.

"My wish is the ones that are starting, that are the beginning of their career, like I was a few years ago, like Pep was, like Ancelotti was - everybody went through the same process - I hope they transform their image and their reputation in results because that's what stays, that's what stays forever and makes you belong to a certain level."