No, not the Eva Carneiro tonguelashing and subsequent dismissal; no, not his many odious indiscretions and otiose face-offs with the authorities; no, not during his seven minute rant following our home loss to Southampton which necessitated his vote of confidence from the club. No, not any of that. Mourinho lost it when he, in the summer transfer window, prioritised chasing John Stones’ shadow over filling the gapping holes that existed in our team, especially in the midfield.
For purists like me, the league triumph was anything but excellent; though impressive, it was almost as though we won the league by default as we were relatively the best team in the country not necessarily because we were so brilliant but because the usual suspects were absolutely shockingly bad contenders. Simply put, that win papered over our cracks. Cue the meltdown this term, when the usual suspects and even the Crystal Palaces and the West Hams have now wised up and caught us resting on our oars!
I say this because from all the numerical as well as empirical parameters I have tested, signing a centre-back should never have been given priority over a central midfielder, as our defence though not as solid as a typical Mourinho defence was the best in the country anyway.
Whilst there’s no gainsaying that John Terry although ageing played every single minute of all 38 matches as we romped to the Premier League title last term, Cesc Fabregas’ weaknesses were well-documented, not least by his kith and kin in Catalunya, whilst Nemanja Matic was never your quickest or meanest defensive midfielder, meaning that getting competition and/or depth for both was always supposed to be top on the to-do list. Alas, it wasn’t!
I mean isn’t it ironical that a club with which a certain Claude Makelele got a whole position named after him after the turn of the century nowadays plays the beautiful game without anyone remotely manning or pretending to man the “Makelele role”? Of course, everyone and his dog knows John Mikel was never and will never be the answer to the legendary Frenchman. But, blimey, what did Mourinho our so-called best manager in history do to replace the former Real Madrid defensive midfield five-star general whom a certain Claudio Ranieri signed in 2003?
For whatever it is worth there must be a reason why a major proponent of the attacking game and tiki-taka Pep Guardiola bought both Xavi Alonso and Arturo Vidal – firm sturdy no-nonsense destroyers who can also create in a flash of magic – in addition to one Javi Martinez at Bayern Munich, no?
Nevertheless, looking back into our archives here on Vital Chelsea, it gets more frustrating to note that a good number of our members, not excluding this writer, thought a midfielder stronger than Fabregas but equally as good on the ball was always a necessity, even when the little “Spaniard with the magic hat” was on a roll.
Now whilst it can be argued that the board didn’t support the manager enough, the mere fact that they supported Mourinho up to the tune of £32m for Stones and £46m for Koke smashes such argument to smithereens, especially when viewed through the prism that the former was obviously the manager’s pet pursuit while the latter was apparently the board’s(read, Michael Emenalo’s) pursuit.
Ostensibly, whilst fairness and sportsmanship dictates that the blame game be played fairly and the blames apportioned appropriately, the manager who by virtue of his designation is responsible for first team management has to take the lion’s share for not only failing to keep options B, C and even D open while going a shopping, but also failing to get his priorities right in the first place.
Do I think we’d be higher up the table if we had someone better than Fabregas and Matic at the moment and who Mourinho can trust more than he does Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Mikel? Well, your guess is as good as mine.
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