On Reflection: Jose Mourinho is worse off than when he left in 2007, so why's he still at Chelsea?

It was Roman Abramovich’s 49th birthday on Saturday, but the Chelsea owner can’t have done too much celebrating. Just a few weeks after giving Jose Mourinho a vote of confidence (normally a precursor to changing coaches), Chelsea lost again, this time at London rivals West Ham.

Everything that could have gone wrong for the Blues at Upton Park did in the 2-1 loss: Mourinho was sent off, as was his assistant Silvino Louro and Nemanja Matic; Cesc Fabregas had a goal disallowed for a marginal offside; Kurt Zouma’s goal-bound header was ruled not to have crossed the whitewash by Goal-Line Technology but was only millimetres away.

Reports this week make grim reading for the Portuguese. He is one more defeat from the sack, said The Times. The Daily Telegraph claimed that intermediaries are working to offer Pep Guardiola to Abramovich for next season (without Chelsea’s or Guardiola’s mandate, it has to be said). The Daily Mail said former coaches Carlo Ancelotti and Guus Hiddink, both popular in their previous spells in London, are available options – although Ancelotti told Gazzetta dello Sport that, “Jose… is the right man for the job.”

“His aura unravels with every defeat,” wrote Oliver Kay in The Times. “His team selections are erratic, his messages are conflicting and the atmosphere at the club’s training ground has soured to an alarming degree.”

After five defeats in ten league games, the English champions are nine points off the top four. Compare this with the situation when Mourinho first left the club in 2007: back then, Chelsea were in fifth place after six games with a league record of won three, lost one and drawn two. They were only two points off top spot.

The key difference is what happened the previous season: back in 2006-07, Chelsea had finished second in the table, six points behind Manchester United. Their title challenge floundered late on, after drawing their last five games of the campaign, against Newcastle, Bolton, Arsenal, United and Everton. It was Andrei Shevchenko’s first season in London and Mourinho was in the delicate situation of selecting Abramovich’s pick despite his poor return: four goals in 22 league starts.

Coach and owner had been bickering throughout the 2006-07 season, partly over the Ukraine striker’s role and issues over Chelsea’s style of play. That summer, Mourinho had admitted he “was a bit fed up with certain things” at the club. By the time a crowd of just under 25,000 watched a Champions League draw with Rosenborg, Mourinho had also reportedly fallen out with John Terry. When the split was confirmed, the day after the Rosenborg game, it coincided with the release of Blue Revolution, a documentary about the club in which then-chief executive Peter Kenyon said that Chelsea would only be considered a truly great club when they win the Champions League twice in 10 years (that was eight years ago, and they have won it once).

This season’s slump is all the more surprising because Chelsea won the title, and comfortably, finishing eight points from second-placed Manchester City. The dip in performance under Mourinho this time around is far more noticeable than in 2007:

You can see the drop in form from this season to last compared with 2006-07 and the start of 2007-08 is greater: more than twice the amount of goals conceded and half the number of points won per game, with 1.3 fewer shots on target per game. The only metric with some stability is the yellow cards per game: before Chelsea were shown seven against West Ham, they were actually less card-happy than last season’s champions.

Mourinho might point to a lack of support from the recruitment team. It’s clear following a summer when United and City – and yes, even Arsenal despite not signing an outfield player – obviously strengthened their starting elevens, Chelsea mainly replaced like-for-like and in some cases, not necessarily for the better.

The 2007 squad depth was stronger than today’s; arguably the team was too, as under Avram Grant they finished second in the league and reached the Champions League final. You could also argue that the spirit was better too: an intangible quality but perhaps measurable but how many times they picked up points from losing positions.

In 2007 Chelsea won seven of their 11 points by coming from behind, notably in wins over Birmingham (3-2) and Reading (2-1); this season, they have picked up only one point, in the draw with Newcastle (2-2). Instead they have either crumbled, as against Everton (3-1) or Southampton (3-1), or dug themselves out of a hole then jumped back in, as against West Ham (2-1) and Crystal Palace (2-1).

In all departments, then, it seems that the current situation is worse than the 2007 decline. So why is Mourinho still in charge? It might be his new four-year contract, but managerial pay-offs have never stopped Abramovich switching bosses in the past. Perhaps it’s the big-picture vision: the Chelsea board wanted Mourinho to be coach for the long-term, and see the current travails as no more than a short-term blip. The big surprise is that after 11 years of Abramovich having a twitchy trigger-finger, maybe he has finally learned the art of patience. Whether that will continue remains to be seen.