After a first month of mixed results at Manchester United, club sources say there has also been a mixed response to how Jose Mourinho has handled it all. Those close to the squad state some players have genuinely been taken aback at the manager's public criticism of Luke Shaw and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and that it did cause a genuine ripple in the dressing room. Others have been much more accepting of the approach as part of his management style and describe how, by Tuesday afternoon, Mourinho was joking around in a relaxed training session.
People who best know the Portuguese think heed should be taken from the latter view. They talk about how one of Mourinho's key team-building techniques is to "push buttons" of players he doesn't know, to see how they cope, to see if they can handle the hard edge required for a winning team. He will unexpectedly drop them or criticise them, just so he can read their reaction. If Mourinho approves, they are kept and trusted. If he disapproves, they are generally discarded.
It's difficult not to think he's trying exactly this with Shaw and Mkhitaryan, as well as a few other United players. And, if they follow it by producing good performances, it will be equally difficult not to think it has worked -- at least for now.
The wonder, however, is whether that is still the best approach to creating the best teams in this era. Is it really the optimum way to handle young players coming back from injury like Shaw, or those adapting to a new country like Mkhitaryan? Does this still create the intensity Mourinho's finest sides have had, or does it merely fuel the resentment that has seen his last two sides at Real Madrid -- where he had a famous falling out with captain Iker Casillas -- and Chelsea break apart?
The deterioration of relationships at both of those clubs casts a shadow over much of this. There is actually an argument that the entire issue of how the Portuguese psychologically manages his players is the most important at United right now, even more than Wayne Rooney's place in the team or whether he can find a midfield configuration that gets the best out of Paul Pogba. That is not just because of the fallout from the 3-1 defeat to Watford, it is because that controversy so quickly brought focus on something that had been one of his primary problems at both Real and Chelsea. In both of those jobs, the players stopped responding.
Mourinho now needs a big response from his United squad. He needs them to prevent a big question becoming a proper crisis. He needs them fired up to get a first league win in three games, and prevent a third successive league defeat. He needs to reassert that authority, and show the unity of purpose that defined his best sides.