AS a television commentator there are certain images you associate with covering particularly meaningful matches. The sight of a joyous Jose Mourinho punching the air while cantering along the Old Trafford touchline with his coat-tails flapping behind him is one that stands out for me.

Alas this snapshot has nothing to with modern-day Manchester United, the club Mourinho has managed for nearly two years. No, this was the youthful, up-and-coming Jose, whose upstarts Porto were about to eliminate Sir Alex Ferguson’s Red Devils en route to lifting the Champions League trophy in 2004.

A year earlier, his charges had beaten Celtic in a roller-coaster ride of a Uefa Cup final and Mourinho was in the process of announcing himself to a wider public. When he took over at Chelsea, we simply couldn’t get enough of him. Mischievous, clever, funny and clearly revelling in the spotlight, Mourinho has the world before him. The cameras loved the Special One.

It mattered little that the football he espoused was efficient and plodding, rather than vibrant and dynamic. He was a winner. The trophies were there for all to see. The man was an undoubted star and used his stardom to marvellous effect by making himself the story and taking the pressure off his players.

Mourinho knew how to charm an audience. Not long after he left Chelsea and joined Inter, I was lucky enough to spend an hour in his company for ESPN TV in my home base of Boston, where he was helping promote his club’s forthcoming tour of the USA.

TV crews for such an interview can often amount to more than just a cameraman and a reporter. What struck me was the fact that he went around the room shaking hands with the sound man, the producer, production assistants and make up artist.

“Hello, I am Jose,” he said as he introduced himself, as though no-one knew.

Refreshingly, just before the on- camera chat commenced, he said it was fine to ask him anything, nothing was off limits. In the sometimes prickly world of football, this was a novelty. We covered everything from his past, his present at Inter and his future goals as a coach. To the delight of the producer, he admitted that some day he could be tempted to work in the USA. I even got him to acknowledge that he found a TV impression of him featuring a puppet amusing. All our crew members came away with a very favourable view of Jose Mourinho.

Despite this, I have always had a nagging question-mark about him on a day-to-day basis. This is because he has never lasted long at any one club. There is actually a pattern. Chelsea for just over three years, Inter for two, Real Madrid for three, then Chelsea again in a spell lasting two-and-a-half seasons, and now United. But for how much longer?

Three years seems to represent the limit before wearing out his welcome. Results and morale have a habit of deteriorating towards the end. He is not a builder in the sense that Ferguson or Fabio Capello were in embodying their clubs and constructing for the long haul.

But his football ideas have generally brought success while showing flexibility. At Porto, he favoured a midfield diamond, while at Chelsea the usual 4-3-3 played to the strengths of the box-to-box Frank Lampard and the more defensive- minded Claude Makele. With Inter he ran the gamut of systems repeating his diamond from earlier years, using 4-3-3 from time to time and eventually introducing the 4-2-3-1 that has become the contemporary Mourinho’s tactical staple with United.

The one constant has been the attraction of the belt-and- braces approach. Some will call it anti-football.

I have never been sure Mourinho is the right fit for Manchester United. Yes, he won two trophies last season but sixth place in the most important competition, the Premier League, fell well below internal expectations.

This season he has guided United to second behind an out-of-reach Manchester City. Yet Mourinho’s preferred style resembles yesteryear’s football compared to what the more attack-orientated Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp are doing with their respective clubs.

United’s best player Paul Pogba, often used in a more defensive midfield role in the 4-2-3-1, is not deployed where he can do most damage. In his Juventus days he dazzled playing on the left of a narrow 4-3-3.

When I look at Mourinho now, I see a melancholy, even irascible man, without the twinkle in the eye from his Porto, Chelsea and Inter periods. I can hardly imagine him being the open book he was in Boston nearly a decade ago.

After losing so disappointingly to Sevilla on top of a general disillusionment among United fans, Mourinho’s history of not staying long and his body language, it is hard to escape the following conclusion: this marriage looks doomed.

FRIDAY’S draw for the Champions League quarter-finals produced two ties that stand out for intrigue, one that might be closer then you think and another that should be straightforward for Barcelona.

I remarked to a colleague recently that a coherent case for Liverpool to win the competition could be made depending on the draw. But I am far from sure being paired with Manchester City was the best outcome for them. Granted the Klopp XI beat City 4-3 in a mid-January thriller but they also got thumped 5-0 on their last trip to the Etihad in September. City, given their huge lead at the top of the Premier League table, can afford to commit all their resources towards winning the one competition that has eluded them.

Juventus against Real Madrid in a repeat of last season’s final speaks for itself. Expect Juve to give the 12-times European club champions a sterner test.

Anyone who marvelled at Sevilla in their Old Trafford win will give them a chance against Bayern. I have Germany’s record champions with a slight edge, even minus one of their best players, Kingsley Coman, who is out with an ankle injury.

Roma always looked like the outsiders in this last-eight field and they have a thankless task trying to muzzle Messi and his friends. The draw, following a splendid night’s work against Chelsea, has only strengthened belief in the Barcelona camp that they can win Europe’s most prestigious club competition for the sixth time.