Will Jose Mourinho ever be generous in defeat?

WILL Jose Mourinho ever be generous in defeat? For such a brilliant coach whose CV can only be matched be a select few, one would expect the Chelsea boss to take the occasional defeats that come his way on the chin, give credit where it’s due and move on.

But sadly that is not Jose Mourinho. When the Blues boss wins, it’s due to his tactical ingenuity (and in truth there have been many occasions when his tactical nou has won him matches). But when things go pear-shaped, like they did at Saint James’ Park Saturday, then somebody else had to be responsible.

Mou can never be out-thought or out-foxed. Something untowards must have happened, something illegal must have taken place. Mou is unbeatable – you only beat him by employing cowardly underhand tactics. No, Mourinho cannot be beaten! And for Newcastle to have ended Chelsea’s 23-match unbeaten run, the Magpies, their ball boys and their vociferous fans must be blamed. They did things; they did illegal things, that is.

Ok, why not allow the Special One to plead his own case, as he is most capable of.

“Things were happening that the referee (Martin Atkinson) cannot control,” said Mourinho in his post-match chat after his Blues bit the dust for the first time this season. “He (the ref)cannot punish the ball boy that disappears, the people in the crowd that keep the ball or somebody that throws a second ball on to the pitch.”

Even when ref Atkinson added a generous six minutes injury time which Toon boss Alan Pardew described as “Mourinho Time”, Mou still had plenty complaints. “If the six minutes were to be played normally it would be fine, but again in the six minutes more of the same happens,” Mourinho mourned.

 

“One thing is to waste time on the pitch in a proper way – you keep the ball, you go to the corner, you hold the ball, you wait for the free-kick and the goalkeeper is not running to get the ball. But another thing is what happens outside the four lines which is the responsibility not of the referee. I thought at high level football these sort of situations would not happen.”

Oh, a standing ovation for the Special One, never mind that he is credited with re-inventing and refreshing the infamous catenaccio which is euphemistically called “parking the boss” nowadays! And no prize for guessing the man who came up with the parking the boss coinage – a certain Mr Mourinho.

Mou is the professor emeritus of bus parking. But of course, others are forbidden to employ the obnoxious tactics against his team or at least they must seek and get his permission to do so, lest we forget, he is the respected refiner and custodian of bus parking.

Truth is Mou is not a bad loser, he’s a terrible loser and an unrepentant hypocrite. When it suits him, he parks the bus to win matches against superior or sometimes equal opponents. But when admittedly weaker teams give him a dose of his medicine, he goes up in arms.

Early this year, March to be precise, Mourinho confronted a ball boy during Chelsea’s 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace,  warning him that he could be punched in the future if he slowed down play. He also described West Ham performance in their goalless draw against the Blues at the Stamford Bridge as 18th century football.

 

But the Hypocritical One was at the centre of a ball-holding storm at Anfield barely a month later. I guess that was not a “high level” football. So alright, it’s cool to slow down play illegally, no? At this juncture, it may be right to allow Magpies boss Pardew reply his Portuguese counterpart.

“We’ve lost players left, right and centre, we are down to 10 men and for the manager of the opposition to moan about time-wasting is not really acceptable,” replied the Victorious One. “If the ball goes in the stand at Newcastle with six minutes to go, it ain’t coming back, trust me.

“… It was an unbelievable performance. I was very disappointed with the six minutes because as the home team I’ve never had that.”

But naturally Mou will have the final word: “I lost the game the way I like to lose,” he consoled unsuccessfully. “I don’t blame the referee because the referee was good, (thank God for that Mr Mourinho). I don’t blame my players for complacency or lack of attitude because they gave absolutely everything (thank God for the players too because Mou slated them for lacking attitude when they lost 2-0 at this ground last season).”

Personally, I think Chelsea’s defeat had been coming for some time. They escaped with the skin of their teeth in the goalless draw at Newcastle’s neighbours Sunderland two weeks ago. I wrote then that Black Cats boss Gus Poyet might have unveiled the way to beat the Blues. Spurs failed to pay heed to Poyet’s gospel and paid with a 3-0 chastening. But Pardew who had better firepower than Sunderland took his note well before and during the match and got a bounty reward of unexpected maximum points against the highflying league leaders.

His masterstroke was introducing St James’ Park loved Senegalese Papis Cisse into the fray in the second half. Cisse came on for ineffective Cabela, a striker for a midfielder, and responded with a brace to underline his manager’s excellent match reading on the day.

 

In truth, St James Park has been a jinxed ground for Mou and is the only big ground in England where he hasn’t tasted victory despite five attempts. And when you faced a team which had won five leagues matches on the bounce and had lost only once in seven BPL matches and at a ground where you had never won, maybe Mou needed another approach other than his team’s newfound swashbuckling style.

Am I insinuating he should have parked the bus at St James’ Park? Certainly not, far from it. But I always had a feeling Chelsea weren’t going to beat Newcastle on their patch which is why I tipped them to get a draw in my inaugural weekend predictions.

I was oblivion to showed the stars were firmly set for a Blues fall. On three different occasions in their past history, Chelsea had gone 23 matches unbeaten only to lose at the 24th time of asking. Interestingly, the clash with the Magpies was the Blues “jinxed” 24th in their recently extinguished unbeaten sequence.