Chelsea FC: How Jose Mourinho Surrendered Before The War

By Ed Fernandez
10 years Ago

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a columnist as unabashedly pro-Mourinho as yours truly. But the manner of Chelsea’s meek surrender in the Premier League and now the UEFA Champions League, calls into question the lock-pulling deference Mourinho has been treated with on these pages. It may sound awfully knee-jerk to many, but ‘timely’ is a more apt turn of phrase considering the circumstances.

Chelsea’s undoing this season, that leaves them staring at a 3rd place finish in the domestic league and pondering an early exit from the Champions League Round of 16, shouldn’t come as a shock despite all the promise of a turnaround at every corner. And it certainly is no surprise to Jose Mourinho, the man who predicted a train wreck, and then fiddled while his worst fears came true.

For a man who architected Chelsea’s first winning seasons in 50 years, Mourinho knows precisely what it takes to win the Premier League: a rock-solid defense, offensive flanks and a powerful forward (or two). It makes it all the more unforgivable then given the winter transfer window, the plethora of evidence that his strikers were terrible and an owner willing to roll out the big bucks, Mourinho still chose to play it safe and stick with the motley crew of misfit strikers no other team would even consider hiring as water-carriers.

Now, in all fairness, Mourinho did tell us he didn’t expect to win anything this season. But how on earth were True Blues supposed to know he was serious? Most believed it was just a clever ploy to fool everyone else into complacency while Chelsea went from strength to strength. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Mourinho engaged in the art of misdirection.

An older, wiser Mourinho should have gotten wilier – but apparently, he’s just gotten slower, more honest and less oblivious to his team’s obvious flaws. It might be convenient to lay most of the blame for the two most recent debacles at the feet of Terry and David Luiz. After all, both men duly rewarded their manager’s faith in them with characteristic unerring accuracy in diverting the ball right into their own nets. And yet, mistakes are bound to be made when they’re essentially called on to carry on a double-shift. How so, you ask?

Well, with an absent attack, Chelsea are left with having their midfield trying desperately to offer some semblance of venom up-front, and the defense trying desperately hard to guard against attacks over vast swathes of the field left unmonitored by the advanced midfield and absent strikers. It’s a surprise Terry and Luiz hadn’t committed any more errors: not that we could have been any more forgiving.

Chelsea could have seen a bid through for some of the biggest strikers this winter, or even last summer: Diego Costa, Wayne Rooney, Edinson Cavani, Sergio Aguero et al. But in a moment of sheer stupidity, Chelsea’s most successful manager believed all Demba Ba and Fernando Torres needed was competition. So he brought on a fading star well past his prime, in a desperate bid to resurrect the hunger of the other two: one, the most expensive British purchase of all time, the other, a poacher – a kind word for someone who cannot conjure up a goal-scoring opportunity of his own.

Mourinho then got himself recorded, allegedly without his knowledge, disparaging his strikers. His response to it being published on the front pages of every newspaper in the land, was hilarious – he sputtered about like a drunk man who had been caught cheating and yet insisted it was wife’s fault for coming back home unannounced.

If Torres, Eto’o and Ba had any semblance of pride left, after that media scandal, it was soon blown to bits by Mourinho’s calculated deployment of Andre Schurrle as Chelsea’s lone front-man in the big game against PSG. Schurrle is a winger, who does his best when he cuts, with acceleration, from the edges of the field and takes defenders by surprise at incisive angles. Plopping him right in the center of the pitch was never meant to work; it was meant only to signal a declaration of war against Chelsea’s ineffectual strikers.

Naturally, PSG didn’t receive the script Mourinho likely fancied: the one where Schurrle proves Jose right by saving Chelsea’s day and England’s pride with a couple of well-taken goals. In the end, nothing of note happened and if it weren’t for Eden Hazard’s penalty Chelsea would have left Paris empty-handed. As Mourinho bemoaned his lack of real strikers, Torres sparked back to life.

Not on the field, mind you. But in the newspapers: that last refuge of has-been strikers. After terrifying Chelsea fans by featuring in the new Adidas ad for next season’s kit, Torres told The Independent’s Sam Wallace that his difficulties sprang from Chelsea’s similarity with the Spanish national team: playing with quality, keeping the ball and passing it along. That should terrify the Spanish head honchos; because if it means anything, Torres will doom the Spaniards at the World Cup if he gets a chance to touch a blade of grass.

Hopefully, they’re going to do something about it. Quite unlike Mr.Mourinho.

Categories: Chelsea FC, Features
Tags: Chelsea FC Jose Mourinho

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