@kaybaba99
“Finally, while I hear stirrings of discontent among fans with some openly suggesting that Mourinho should leave or be sacked, I hold a slightly different view. He got Chelsea into this hole. He’s capable of digging them out. I think he should be allowed to do that.”
The above quotation was how I closed last week’s edition of Popular Side. Today, I know you’re dying to know, I’m advocating that Mourinho should go. What has changed?
In football, as in practically everything else in life, seven days is a long time in which many things can happen and, indeed, much has happened since the last time we were on this page.
In the space of four days, Chelsea got booted out of the Capital One Cup and, more embarrassingly, they were pummeled 3-1 by Liverpool at the Stamford Bridge last Saturday.
On Big League Soccer, our weekly football television programme on AWA TV channel 123 on StarTimes which airs every Friday evening @ 8pm with repeat broadcast on Saturday morning @ 8am, I predicted Chelsea were going to win the game 2-1. Why did I stick my neck out, given Chelsea’s recent poor run of form?
The answer is simple. Mourinho. I’m not a big fan of the Portuguese and long-time readers of Popular Side will know my reasons for this yet I reposed enough confidence in him to turn things around, beginning with the Liverpool tie.
Unfortunately, while Chelsea fizzled out despite taking an early lead, I was impressed by Liverpool’s response to going one goal down. They harassed Chelsea and chased down every ball, covering every square inch of the pitch with their determination such that you knew it was a matter of when, not if, they were going to score. And when the goals finally started raining, they were of such quality that one just had to salute the Reds. Under Rodgers, they’d have dropped their heads and be in sixes and sevens but they maintained their balance and kept plugging away. The result, I must confess, was just reward for an afternoon’s labour.
For Chelsea, it was the same old story and that familiar old feeling grips the heart that they would implode at a moment’s notice. I wrote on Facebook that the defence was Mourinho’s worst nightmare and, before I could finish saying it, the first goal had gone in with four or five players standing around and praying/wishing Coutinho to play the ball anywhere but in their goal. The second and third goal where not much different in terms of the defenders’ culpability so you are left wondering if this was a team put out by Mourinho, that man who is legendary for setting up rock-solid defences.
In 17 games in all competitions this season, Chelsea have scored 26 and conceded 27 goals. Coupled with the unfamiliar territory of 15th place on the league table, these statistics do NOT describe Chelsea. Or, at least, Mourinho’s team which is usually built on an impregnable defence.
Lest we forget, Chelsea hold the record for the highest ever points total for a league season (95), the fewest goals conceded during a league season (15), the highest number of Premier League victories in a season (29) and the highest number of clean sheets overall in a Premier League season (25) (all set during the 2004-05 season). They also hold the record for the highest number of consecutive clean sheets from the start of a league season (6, set during the 2005/06 season). These records were set under Mourinho in his first coming. If you add the fact that he masterminded three of their four Premier League titles, then you understand why he’s the best manger ever to handle the Blues.
Even the bad times are good under Mourinho. He described his final season at Real Madrid as the worst of his career, but still won the Spanish Super Cup, came second in La Liga, reached the semi-final of the Champions League and the final of the Copa del Rey.
Now, the same manager is superintending a team that has conceded more goals than it has scored, lost more games in just the first eleven weeks than it did in the whole of the 2005/06 season and now have the worst start ever to the defence of the Premier League. The previous record, held by Leeds United with 14 points from their first 10 games, has been eclipsed by Chelsea who now have 11 points from 11 games.
I’m sure what hurts Mourinho more than the fact that his team is losing is the fact that he’s forced to eat humble pie, reduced to looking for excuses and rhetoric to explain one dismal performance after another.
While it is good to see the self-styled Special One brought down from his high horse, its heart-rending to see him groveling before people he ordinarily wouldn’t care to share the time of day with.
Like all humans, I’m tempted to mock him for his misfortune but yet, like all great men, it will be uncharitable not to make allowances for his failings as a human being even if he failed to accord others that same courtesy.
What is sadder than seeing the normally unflappable Mourinho, with a microphone thrust at him, being unable to mutter an intelligible word other than ‘nothing, nothing, nothing” when asked what his reaction was to the latest debacle that was the loss to Liverpool.
It is a crying shame and this informed the reason why I’ve come to the conclusion that Mourinho needs a change of scene. I refuse to buy into the mass-hysteria that he’s being sabotaged by players and others at the club. Neither am I sold on the ludicrous conspiracy from game officials that Mourinho has employed in the past to curry sympathy but which has now worn thin.
Now, going forward, I think the best way to put Mourinho out of his misery is for him to take a walk, NOT WAIT UNTIL HE’S SACKED! Already, most people conveniently forget that, beyond the bluster, Mourinho is one of the most successful managers of all time. However, the results piling up now are the standards by which he will be judged and the memories by which he would be remembered. Everyone will talk about Mourinho has the coach who created all sorts of infamous records with Chelsea. Few will acknowledge that he won for the Blues their first league title in 50 years and that he has won eight titles for them while making Chelsea one of the biggest brand in world football.
I pray that Mourinho would see the sense in jumping before he’s pushed. If he needed any inspiration as to what a temporary sabbatical can do, he can take a peek into the books of Saturday conqueror Jurgen Klopp. Despite presiding over some of the most successful era in Dortmund history, Klopp left the club at the end of last season by mutual consent. Today, the club is doing well under a new manager and Klopp, after a deserved rest, is back in business with Liverpool, one of Europe’s biggest clubs.
I’m aware Mourinho is reluctant to leave, preferring to be sacked so he can claim a fat severance pay in the region of £37m or £9.5m (depending on who you ask). Without being privy to the fine prints of Mourinho’s contract, it is difficult to say for sure how much is due to come to him should he be sacked but knowing how much he loves Chelsea Football Club, the last consideration to leave the club will be monetary.
The only reason why Mourinho has not thrown in the towel, I think, is the fact that his pride has been injured and his ability called into question by the recent run of results and he’ll be desperate to turn things around so he can thump his chest and thrust the middle finger at his critics.
Unfortunately, things may not work like he’s envisaging and he might be hurting the club more by staying than by walking away.
For sure, Roman Abramovich’s patience will be sorely tested before he would sack Mourinho. The usually trigger-happy Russian is reluctant to fire his manager out of respect for the Portuguese and in order not to make the same mistake of 2007 when Mourinho was let go even though it was couched in the nice language of “by mutual consent’.
It is now left for Mourinho to take the moral high-way and walk out the Stamford Bridge door with his head held high. He’s got nothing to be ashamed of.
Rather, in my opinion, he’s been a victim of his own incredibly high standards.
Yet, he can save the day by hearkening to the voice of reason urging him to go, go, go.
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