By Sunday, It was a forgone conclusion. Despite Manchester United winning the F.A. Cup on Saturday and its current manager Louis van Gaal’s defiant press conference, news leaked that the club would replace van Gaal with Jose Mourinho imminently. On Monday, the club announced the news, making official the worst-kept secret in soccer.

Although it’s naive to suggest van Gaal is the cause of all Manchester United’s problems, there are many of good reasons not to like him. He failed to lead them into the Champions League. The team’s slow, meandering style is effective defensively but painfully boring on the eye, all while the team’s offensive output has plummeted: Manchester United has created just 312 scoring chances this season, fourth-worst in the division.

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Wanting to install new leadership under those circumstances is understandable. But rather than calmly refocusing its goal and figuring out the right man to take them there, Manchester United are pulling the trigger on Jose Mourinho.

Mourinho has pushed for a move to Manchester United ever since leaving Real Madrid in 2013 and his super-agent, Jorge Mendes, pulled out all the stops this time to make happen. The fans clearly wanted a change, too, but make no mistake: This was not a decision made from a position of strength. This is a desperation move from Manchester United.

Jose Mourinho is a very good manager because, everything else aside, he wins. A lot. Eight league titles and two Champions League since 2002 proves as much. He’s a trophy-hunter who grinds out wins, over and over and over again. In the right situation, Mourinho could be everything you could ever hope for in a manger.

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But Mourinho’s results come with conditions, ones which, up until this point, we’ve been led to believe are contrary to the values of Manchester United. Indeed, it’s those conditions that fueled so much of the anti-van Gaal sentiment.

Manchester United fans want entertaining soccer, something Mourinho — for all his strengths — has never nurtured in his teams. And not through want of those around him trying: Chelsea’s Roman Abramovich wanted nothing more than Mourinho to produce a more attractive style. Mourinho simply doesn’t prioritize it. He’s a defense guy. Sit back, steal a goal or two and lock up the door.

“Boring, boring Chelsea,” fans chanted at Mourinho’s Chelsea teams. “Attack, attack, attack” Manchester United fans demanded from van Gaal.

Then there’s the culture of promoting youth that Manchester United fans again say they value so highly. But once again, this has never proved one of Mourinho’s strengths.

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Throughout his career, Mourinho has constantly opted for the steady, proven players. He has repeatedly sold prospects who could one day develop to finance aging stars that will help him win today, which is in part a product of Mourinho only staying at clubs for a short period of time. He might contend that, if he’s given the opportunity build a dynasty, things would be different, but that’s simply not true.

Everyone involved wanted Mourinho to build an empire at Chelsea in his most recent stay, and once again, Mourinho reverted to type. Rather than put in a few seasons of work to develop the bright young talents that he inherited, players like Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne, Andre Schurrle and Ryan Bertrand, he sold them all and replaced them with players like Pedro, a 28-year-old he pried from Barcelona. Those aren’t franchise-building moves. Those are win-now moves.

Mourinho’s idea of building a dynasty requires reams of money every year that he can spend unconditionally, all with the aim of quickly turning over a squad full of peaking 28-year-olds.

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This is not a criticism of Mourinho. He’s a fantastic manager, but he’s also a fantastic manager with certain characteristics. He divides widespread opinion for those exact reasons (which, incidentally, is yet another quality Manchester United seemed unimpressed by when they first considered hiring him). Perhaps this neglecting of what used to be important to them is simply a matter of Manchester United re-working its priorities. Maybe the famed “Manchester United way” simply isn’t that important anymore.

Mourinho will probably win trophies, but all along, we were always told that Manchester United was about something more.