The old adage that “the third time’s the charm” has been so thoroughly disproven by the career of Jose Mourinho, it’s a wonder that people still stand by it.

The third time is the polar opposite of the charm when it comes to the Special One. The third time – that is, of course, the third season – for Mourinho portends terrible things.

The third season in his first time around at Chelsea is when things fell apart for him and Roman Abramovich with the club’s Russian oligarch owner bringing in Andriy Shevchenko against Mourinho’s will. Things went south from there. Chelsea finished as runners-up that season, but the Portuguese manager left the club by “mutual consent” the following September.

Year 3 at Real Madrid was the one Mourinho called “the worst of my career” and his assessment makes sense with his relationships with Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos and, most notably, Iker Casillas bottoming out to the point where he called it quits following a loss in the Copa del Rey final in 2013.

Mourinho didn’t even finish the third year of his Stamford Bridge return engagement. Seven months after being crowned Premier League champions, “mutual consent” reared its head again and he was back out the exit door.

As Mourinho heads into that normally tumultuous third year with Manchester United, the success that historically preceded it hasn’t at Old Trafford. Yes, United has a Europa League title and League Cup with Mourinho, but consider the hauls with previous clubs. By his third year at Porto, Chelsea (both times), Real and Inter, Mourinho had produced seven league titles. United hasn’t won a Prem title since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013.

All the omens of a terrible third season to come have been present leading up to United’s season opener on Friday against Leicester City.

There’s been discord with management. There’s been a feud with a player. There have been snipes at rivals. There’s even been a dig at the fans.

And that’s to say nothing about an indifferent preseason that including an embarrassing 4-1 thrashing by Liverpool at the Big House in Michigan last week in front of more than 107,000 spectators.

It’s fair to ask if Mourinho even wants to be in Manchester anymore and bookies agree, putting him below just the Foxes’ Claude Puel and Rafa Benitez of Newcastle as the manager with the third-best odds to be the first to leave during the new season.

You would think with the level of doom and gloom surrounding the Red Devils as the season gets underway that a relegation fight is in the cards, but this is still a team capable of putting up a title fight.

David de Gea remains the game’s premier goalkeeper. Romelu Lukaku scored 16 goals in the league last season and starred for Belgium at the World Cup, not just by finding the back of the net, but through the intelligence of his runs and play off the ball. Paul Pogba showed what he’s capable of as a midfield linchpin as he helped lead France to triumph in Russia.

Then there’s Alexis Sanchez. Coming over from Arsenal in January in a surprise transfer as the Chilean maestro was widely expected to join rivals Manchester City, Sanchez’s transition to life as a Red Devil was a bumpy one, scoring only three times in his first 18 appearances in all competitions. His arrival meant less playing time for Anthony Martial, whose form went from sizzling to ice-cold in short order.

Often played out of preferred position (Mourinho employed Sanchez far too deep on the left and occasionally in behind Lukaku), Sanchez’s struggles were obvious, but as one of the bright spots of the preseason, things look up for his first full campaign. Employed on the left in a 4-3-3 and up top in a 3-5-2 during the American tour, Sanchez has looked much more at home and a potential partnership with Lukaku seems like an enticing possibility. If Sanchez can replicate the form he displayed on a regular basis at the Emirates, it’s yet another tool in a lethal United attack that also boasts England internationals Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard.

And while Sanchez can be like a new signing, Mourinho can be a little bit aggrieved with a lack of actual new signings. There is Brazil international Fred, a competent box-to-box midfielder who could shine alongside Pogba and Nemanja Matic, but we won’t see the trio in action until right away because Matic is out to start the season following surgery for an injury incurred during the World Cup. The club’s two other signings are unlikely to make a significant impact this season – 19-year-old right-back Diogo Dalot, signed from Porto, appears to be an addition for the future, while 35-year-old keeper Lee Grant won’t feature – barring a disaster – and is cover at backup until the return from injury of Sergio Romero.

Mourinho still wants a couple of more arrivals prior to the August 9 transfer deadline, but not necessarily where you’d expect. While United conceded the second-fewest goals in the league last season with 28 (one more than the 27 conceded by City), Mourinho seems to ascribe that mark to the play of de Gea and not so much the team’s overall defensive shape. He’s probably not wrong.

As terrific as Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young were last season, having your starting right-back and left-back combine in age to 67 seems like a recipe for disaster with legitimate questions being asked about how long their play can remain at that level. Luke Shaw remains an option on the left, but it’s obvious that Mourinho has never trusted the oft-injured England international and probably won’t start to now.

At the centre of the backline, there doesn’t appear to be a combination that Mourinho truly fancies. Chris Smalling and Phil Jones became the first-choice pairing for most of last season and they will likely start the new campaign that way again, but Victor Lindelof and Eric Bailly remain expensive bench options. Mourinho also seems hell-bent on adding another central defender before the window closes with the club attached to the likes of Spurs’ Toby Alderweireld, Harry Maguire of Leicester and Barcelona’s Yerry Mina.

Though United finished second last season and beat every other team in the EPL, there was no real title push. With the title drought now at five seasons and counting, it’s the longest the Red Devils have gone without finishing atop the table in the history of the Premier League. Maybe then the pressure is simply getting to Mourinho. Or could his dour mood be meant to tamper expectations ahead of a challenge for top spot – another classic Mourinho mind game? Perhaps, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

In any event, there is the quality here to win a 21st English title. There’s also enough combustible elements here to have this season go up in flames spectacularly. For fans and haters of the Red Devils alike, anything less than one of those two possibilities will be a disappointment for different reasons.