Is José Mourinho finally human?
Is Jose Mourinho’s magic running out? Can he no longer get the best out of his players?
After a disappointing start to the season, all these questions and more are being posed, and rightfully so: Chelsea have lost the same amount of games this season already as they did in the entirety of last season. Mourinho has, ever since he burst on to the scene after making Porto European champions in 2004, been an enigma for the press, opposing managers and referees alike. Wherever he goes his players seem to adore him and his philosophies, and it appears the players believe in him and he believes in them as he almost guarantees success by any means. There is an old saying in romance of never going back and that it will never be the same. The same rule of thumb cannot be directed at a football club unless of course things start to go wrong or old wounds reopen.
Mourinho left Chelsea in September 2007 by mutual consent in strange circumstances; as he and the Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich had many arguments how to take the club forward regarding the club’s transfer policy. Abramovich has injected a reported two billion pounds into the Chelsea project in the ten years he has owned the club. He wanted to see the state of the art youth facilities and players bought to be developed to progress to the first team than purchase ready-made players every season. Which as the owner he was well within his right to do but Mourinho historically doesn’t care about the clubs he manages future, only it’s present.
When he left Chelsea in 2007 he had secured a domestic cup double and only lost the league at the start of May the season before to Manchester United. Mourinho then took his travelling media circus act around Europe to Inter Milan and Real Madrid where he won another champions league in Milan, while completing a historic treble in 2010. At Real Madrid he won the Copa del Ray and La Liga championship, before returning to Chelsea last season. José Mourinho went on to win the league last year but this was mainly due to the fact they had such a strong start as they went unbeaten for the first fourteen games until a defeat to Newcastle United on the sixth of December.
José Mourinho has began this season as a man who wishes he had not gone back to his dearest love. Old wounds seem to have been reopened and dug deeper by the fact that Petr Čech was sold to Arsenal; bitter rivals of Chelsea’s. Rumour has it that Abramovich sanctioned the move as Čech couldn’t get into the team, ousted permanently by Thibaut Courtois.
The lack of any transfer movement, despite rivals’ improvements, is a hallmark of Mourinho’s ideology; one which places faith in a small, core squad. It took a loss to Manchester City on the 16th August to force Mourinho’s hand in the market: adding Baba Rahman and Pedro to complement his only other move in the window; Radamel Falcao, as well as Asmir Begovic to cover for Courtois. Mourinho’s desire to live in the present; with his small, dedicated squad is something that Abramovich evidently disagrees with; especially when he sees a squad that won the league by 10 points full of potential to be grown and nurtured.
It seems another divorce could be on the cards between these two as they never seemed to settle their old differences. Mourinho has blamed everyone and everything for the team’s poor start from a female doctor to a dodgy computer. He has defiantly claimed after every defeat this year that his side “deserved more” and that the result wasn’t a true reflection of the game, despite the fact that he has lost the same amount of games after five games this year than he did in thirty eight last. This Chelsea team needs their manager more than ever but instead he seems to be looking for other options when their back is turned.
After this weekend’s defeat against Everton he was defending his position in the post match interview and could get the dreaded vote of confidence in the coming week. His next defeat could be in the court room.
