Revealed: Jose Mourinho's formula for success - and why it's so hard to beat Chelsea

The 21st century has witnessed the revenge of the nerds. The tendency has been to regard the sporting arena as the domain of the supermen, triumphing either with raw talent or indomitable character. Not any more. Sometimes the graduates from the school of hard knocks are outwitted with the aid of the geeks from Silicon Valley.

Baseball has been transformed by its Moneyballers, finding undervalued experts in the game’s dullest skill, drawing walks. Cycling has been revolutionised by Dave Brailsford and his marginal gains. Cricketers become tools for analysts, bowling to plans forged on laptops and prompting their predecessors to complain about their inability to think for themselves.

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[THE TITLE CONTENDERS: How Chelsea will line up this season]

Then there is the most charismatic, controversial, quotable and handsome nerd of them all. Jose Mourinho is the numbers freak disguised as an alpha male. He is motivator, man-manager, mind-gamer. He is Clough and he is Ferguson. But a tactical strategist has also devised a broader plan that is implemented over 38 games. It is a mathematical formula for winning the Premier League that could come from a spreadsheet and is unrivalled in its efficiency.

Mourinho’s three title-winning campaigns bear distinct similarities to one another. Chelsea have gone unbeaten at Stamford Bridge in each. They have won the league by at least eight points in each. They have only lost one game to a top-four finisher and that, at Old Trafford in November 2005, was to a Manchester United side who kicked off 13 points behind them and were already out of the title race.

Such setbacks as they have suffered have tended to come against their inferiors, whether the pre-Sheikh Mansour, mid-table Manchester City in 2004 or Alan Pardew’s Newcastle in December. Three of the nine losses in those seasons came when the title had already been secured and Chelsea’s competitive edge was blunted.

Mourinho’s teams are invariably primed to peak against their peers. Their record in six-pointers is consistently outstanding: 14 points from a possible 18 against the eventual top four in 2004-05, 15 in 2005-06 and 10 last season. If they cannot beat them, they at least ensure they do not lose. Mourinho is at his most proactive in such fixtures – think of his use of Kurt Zouma as Marouane Fellaini’s midfield man-marker last season – devoting a disproportionate amount of his attention to them because they have such significance.

They have ended each title-winning season with the division’s best defensive record but have never averaged two goals a game at the right end. They do not need to: totals of 72, 73 and 73 goals have brought an average of 91 points. Mourinho could fashion a more potent team, and did when Cristiano Ronaldo savoured the turkey shoots La Liga offers, but in the equation of risk and reward, he prefers a guaranteed return. He did not enjoy the anarchy of last year’s 6-3 win at Everton.

His Chelsea teams are the footballing version of the golfer who aims for birdies on the front nine and looks for a safety-first approach of pars on the back nine. Each of his title-winning teams has scored the majority of its goals in the first half of the season. Then they become less expansive. Silverware is secured courtesy of clean sheets. That Chelsea conceded 32 times last season, compared to a mere 15 in 2004-05, throws some light on their pursuit of John Stones. Mourinho sees improvement in greater solidity.

He has a psychological tool to demoralise opponents: the league table. Chelsea were top or joint top for a record 274 days last season. They are natural frontrunners, leaders who apply pressure on anyone who is slow out of the blocks. They try to take the excitement out of a title race. The romantic route to glory entails a spring surge: Manchester City won their last five games in 2013-14 and their last six two years earlier, overtaking others on the home straight. Arsenal became champions in 1998 as they recorded their 10th straight victory.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United were late-goal specialists who could mount late charges. They were long-distance runners who could produce a sprint finish. They went unbeaten in their last 20 league games in the Treble season of 1998-99. They ended with 14 wins in 16 in 1995-96 to reel in Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle.

Mourinho made them change what he might deem a more fluky formula. Ferguson’s United are the only team to pip a typical Mourinho side – given that Chelsea were in transition in 2013-14 – and they did it by borrowing their blueprint. They started fast, winning their opening four league games in 2006-07 and 11 of the first 13. They abandoned their earlier theory of hitting optimum form in March and April. Like the Moneyballers, Mourinho’s influence was felt elsewhere.

It is, of course, easier to come up with a plan than to execute it, let alone with such ruthless consistency as Mourinho has. Those three league titles are proof of judgment, nerve and an enduring ability to forge together different parts to make a similar product in comparable formations, 4-3-3 and its close cousin 4-2-3-1.

Chelsea teams separated by a decade have featured a lone, redoubtable, intimidating and infuriating striker, whether Didier Drogba or Diego Costa, a high-class winger, be he Arjen Robben or Eden Hazard, an attack-minded midfielder who was a statistical marvel, in the shape of Frank Lampard and then Cesc Fabregas. They have had the division’s outstanding defensive midfielder, in Claude Makelele then and Nemanja Matic now, its best back four and, arguably, the finest goalkeeper, first Petr Cech and then Thibaut Courtois. Such talents make winning easier but individuals are subordinated to an overriding structure, even incorporating a right-footed left-back, whether William Gallas or Cesar Azpilicueta, who rarely overlaps. Once again, security is prioritised.

It amounts to an endorsement of a control freak. Mourinho has drained drama from title races by leaving nothing to chance. The challenge for his rivals over the next nine months is either to emulate him, a la Ferguson, or to devise a superior strategy. Because an equally nerdish attention to detail appears required to beat Mourinho.