Jose Mourinho had come prepared. He had done his research. He had deployed the tactical skills he usually uses to stifle opponents to pre-empt an assault from the press. Like Neville Chamberlain, he had in his hand a piece of paper. Like Rafa Benitez, he had facts to support his case. Unlike an arch-enemy who spoke in his stilted English, he had the eloquence to explain himself.

Mourinho, the theory went, lacked the faith in youth that helped define Manchester United, from the Busby Babes via Fergie’s Fledglings through to Van Gaal’s Goslings. “You know how many young players I promote to the first team from academies?” he retorted “Forty-nine,” he said, prepared to list them. Mourinho, in the manner of many of his best teams, went on the offensive by first concentrating on the defence. He did not leave himself open to attack.

Ryan Giggs, symbol of United’s faith in their own and their commitment to excite, had gone as he arrived. “The job Ryan wanted is the job the club decided to give me,” Mourinho countered, his answer seemingly rehearsed, his defence immaculate. “Ryan wanted to be Manchester United manager. It is not my responsibility that Ryan is not at the club.”

Had a different decision been taken, Giggs would have been unveiled at Old Trafford. Instead, Mourinho sat in the Europa Suite, a name that has acquired the wrong meaning for a club exiled from the premier continental competition by their dullness last season. “I feel a bit frustrated I am not playing in the Champions League. I don’t hide that I chase Sir Alex [Ferguson’s] record for matches as a manager in the Champions League.” It was classic latter-period Mourinho, the boastfulness of his younger days replaced by the subtlety to simply hint his record bears comparison with the all-time greats. Others can join the dots.

If Mourinho largely eschewed bragging, nor did he mark his appointment by United with any false modesty. The failure of his last few months at Chelsea was chastening, but his confidence was undented. The post-Ferguson era, where the bar has been set low and United have still failed to clear it, held no interest. “The last three years are to forget,” he said. “I could approach this job in a defensive point of view by saying the last three years the best we did was fourth I can’t go [there]. Finishing fourth is not the aim. It is my nature.”

It is the rapaciousness that has brought him eight league titles and two Champions Leagues. Perhaps his most revealing comment was his simplest. “I want everything,” he said. Age and experience has taught him it is unattainable, but it will not prevent him trying.

Without naming names, he drew a contrast with the past. High aims, not low, a pragmatic quest for glory rather than an incomprehensible philosophy. A mentor became a target. Mourinho presented himself as the anti-Louis van Gaal, borrowing a catchphrase to use to his own advantage. “I was never very good hiding behind words and hiding behind philosophies,” he said. He was rarely one to pass up the opportunity to take a swipe at rivals either and, while he postponed the start of the psychological warfare with Pep Guardiola, there was a typical veiled dig at Arsene Wenger – “there are some managers that the last time they won a title was 10 years ago,” he stated, noting his Chelsea were champions in 2015 – and a series of jibes at Van Gaal. The Dutchman’s habit of rebranding and reinventing players in other positions bemused. The Old Trafford odd-job men will become an endangered species.

“I am more a manager that likes specialists and not so much the multifunctional players,” said Mourinho. The United squad is acquiring his stamp. The efficiency of his finest sides has been mirrored in a business-like approach to the transfer market.

“We made a nucleus of four priorities,” he said. Three vacancies are being filled, with Henrikh Mkhitaryan set to join Eric Bailly and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the arrivals’ hall. The probability is a central midfielder, ideally Paul Pogba, is the other target. All of which suggests Wayne Rooney’s future may be on the bench, but as an attacking substitute. “For me, he will be a No. 9, a No. 10 or a nine and a half but never a No. 6 or a No. 8,” said Mourinho. Van Gaal, of course, took to crowbarring the captain into the side in midfield.

Van Gaal’s United mustered a mere 49 league goals. It meant Mourinho has not yet been asked if his brand of football is too defensive. He supplied the answer anyway, ensuring his preparation did not go to waste. “You cannot win competitions without playing well,” said one who has won 22 of them. “What is playing well? It is scoring more goals than the opponents, conceding less, making your fans proud because you give everything and you win. It is everything at the same time.”

The sense is that Mourinho, the man who has won everything, has achieved his ultimate ambition by arriving at United. Fantasy has become fact. “I don’t like denominations people use like dream job,” he explained. “It is not a dream job; it is reality.”

He portrayed himself as a realist, a man equipped with the understanding and the pedigree to prosper, a connoisseur who embraced United’s identity rather than a barbarian who had come in to wreck it. “I know the legacy and the history of this club, I know what the fans expect from me and I expect this challenge doesn’t make me nervous,” he stated.

It was impressively done. He argued he was mature, but not too mature. “I am 53, not 63 or 73,” he noted. Van Gaal, of course, turns 65 next month. The facts were his friends. Mourinho used the numbers to strengthen his case. And as for his 49 protégés? Research revealed that, apart from the excellent Alvaro Morata and Jose Casemiro, they included such forgettable figures as Anthony Grant, Lenny Pidgeley, Michael Woods and Ben Sahar. Many are a cast list of the forgotten and the forgettable. But Mourinho had called his interrogator’s bluff by offering to name them. By the time they had been revealed, Mourinho had left the room. The defence of his record was caught on camera. Just as he intended.

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