The various stages of Jose Mourinho’s association with Chelsea can be categorised according to the moniker pinned to him at the time.
He had arrived at Stamford Bridge a self-styled ‘Special One’ before rather unlikely dalliances with ‘Mellow Mourinho’ and, on his return after an absence of six years, ‘The Happy One’.
The most successful coach in the club’s history departed last December as ‘The Individual’, a three-time Premier League winner infuriated by a non-responsive senior squad whose title defence had degenerated into the early throes of a relegation struggle. For the first time in a 16-year managerial career, he had appeared at a loss.
It happened a second time, this time against his former club. The extent of Mourinho’s and Manchester United’s embarrassment at Stamford Bridge on Sunday shall reverberate for long. Since taking over at United, his dream job, he has looked subdued, weary and almost bored. Even the signs of the old Mourinho, the occasional crankiness and the delightfully contemptuous observation about football Einsteins, have felt like a bit like a tribute act to himself.
It is possible that, after all the talk of his unsuitability for the job, Mourinho is too conscious of how a United manager should be seen to behave. The old cliche about what happens to a player if you take the fire out of their game also applies to Mourinho. It is very hard for him to excel without confrontation and a siege mentality – weapons which, despite the anti-Mourinho rhetoric, Sir Alex Ferguson regularly used to spectacular effect.
Mourinho’s petulant criticism of his Chelsea counterpart Antonio Conte may bode well for United. It was the first sign that the monster may be stirring.
Mourinho has not looked like Mourinho, and United – with their ponderous attacking and scruffy defending – certainly have not looked like a Mourinho team. That’s because they aren’t. Unlike at Chelsea, Internazionale and Real Madrid, Mourinho did not inherit a solid base – he had to buy almost an entire spine in Eric Bailly, Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The frequent selection of Juan Mata, whom Mourinho sold when he was at Chelsea, is another reflection of how he feels about his squad.
All managers should have 12 months’ grace before judgment is passed. In the Premier League, in 2016, nobody wants to play the long game. They barely want to play the short game. This is the age of entitlement, in which instant gratification is all that matters.
Had the same values existed in the late 1980s, Ferguson would have been sacked without winning a trophy and May 2017 might be the 50th anniversary of their last title win. It took Ferguson five years to build a side capable of even challenging for the title; his astonishing success after that should give his case study the power of a judicial precedent.
Instead, the opposite is true; despite being almost inherently counterproductive, the reset button is usually pressed at the first sign of trouble.
In many ways, Mourinho is reaping what he has sown. His precious success, and his lack of shyness about highlighting that success, means any failure will be magnified. And he antagonised so many people on the way up that coming down was never going to be an enjoyable journey.
Yet, if you view United as a long-term project – which it is – Mourinho has already made some progress. He made four strong signings who, despite some false starts, should become excellent United players, and his handling of the enormous Wayne Rooney problem has been unusually subtle.
The Chelsea defeat should be Mourinho’s trigger to do something different, and do it as quickly as possible. If he doesn’t, the last laugh is likely to be at his expense.
Viewpoint
