Divisive, one-eyed, witty - has Jose Mourinho finally got his mojo back ahead of Chelsea clash?
/dnl.eurosport.com/sd/img/placeholder/eurosport_logo_1x1.png){kind=logo}
Updated 21/10/2016 at 15:54 GMT
After a stubborn draw with Liverpool and a return to form in the press room, Richard Jolly says Jose Mourinho might just have got his mojo back at Manchester United.
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho
Image credit: Reuters
There was a moment last Friday when it felt as though Jose Mourinho had decided to be Jose Mourinho again. He had presented himself as the reformed character, the man who had learned his lesson from making too many provocative statements. He would keep his counsel, he inferred.
Then he talked about referee Anthony Taylor, invited his latest FA charge and ensured that the £230,000 he has already paid the governing body in fines is merely a rising tally.
It may be an expensive way of resolving an identity crisis, but Mourinho is resembling the Mourinho of old again. Monday evening at Anfield offered ample evidence. There was the unapologetically bloody-minded tactics and the 0-0 draw that revived memories of Jorge Valdano’s decade-old description of his meetings with Liverpool as s**t on a stick.
There was the assertion that Liverpool, by fielding Emre Can as well as Jordan Henderson and ignoring the reality the German would not have started but for injuries, were negative themselves and the damning analysis that mustering a mere “two shots on target with 65 per cent of possession, you have to be critical of Liverpool. It is their problem, not our problem.”
There was the way he returned to the press conference room a few minutes later, unprompted, to say that Manchester United’s own statistician concluded they had 42 per cent of the ball, not the 35 the Premier League, among others, had announced to shape the narrative with his facts and figures. And there was the soundbite he liked so much he crowbarred it in into separate interviews, saying Liverpool had been talked up as if they were “the last wonder of the world”.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2016/10/21/1952867-41052825-2560-1440.jpg)
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho celebrates
Image credit: Reuters
This is not to mention his jibe at "Einstein" journalists following United's comprehensive win over Fenerbahce on Thursday night, in which Paul Pogba starred.
Divisive, one-eyed, snappy and witty, these scenes amounted to vintage Mourinho. There have been times over the years when he has offered more entertainment off the pitch than his teams have done on it. This was another. It prompted the thought that Mourinho has got his mojo back.
A league table showing United in seventh spot scarcely suggests as much. But while Mourinho is a serial winner, he has also been defined by an attitude that has rendered him the “Special One” and “enemy of football” simultaneously. He has never been the great unifier. Winning, for Mourinho, has entailed others losing, a process he has often relished. He is not a natural statesman.
Perhaps an attempt to appear as one accounts for an uncertain start at Old Trafford. Perhaps an awareness that his controversial past counted against him in some quarters explained an apparent exercise in rebranding that has now been abandoned. He seemed to have an idealised notion of what a United manager should be: a dignified apostle of attacking football, more Sir Bobby Charlton than Sir Alex Ferguson. It ignores the way that Ferguson often went to Anfield equally determined to keep a clean sheet, no matter how, and that he prospered by being the most unreasonable manager in the business.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2016/10/21/1952609-41047665-2560-1440.jpg)
Mourinho: 'Media Einsteins say Pogba goes from worst player in league to great one in 48 hours'
Mourinho started off at United a shadow of his old self. He stopped coming across like Brian Clough in the 1970s, all cleverness, charisma and razor-sharp delivery. The controversial comments were toned down, his manner more measured. He was less conspicuously pleased with himself. He was even called world-weary. He picked fewer fights, settling merely for exiling Bastian Schweinsteiger. He tried to shoehorn in all of his remaining supposed stars. They produced a strangely incoherent performance against Manchester City, Mourinho’s more attacking collective failing defensively, the manager erring tactically.
So perhaps Friday marked a turning point. Maybe Monday did. Or possibly it came earlier, when Mourinho regained his ruthlessness and dropped Wayne Rooney. What the stalemate at Anfield illustrated is that Mourinho is a scheming paradox, a Galactico of a manager who often works with hugely expensive players and teams expected to win, but who likes imagining himself as the underdog. He gets satisfaction from stifling, fulfilment from fielding footballers in unfashionable ways to do essentially prosaic tasks.
Chelsea know that better than anyone; with his forensic mind, he knows them better than most. It is what makes his return to Stamford Bridge so intriguing. Mourinho can be assured of a fine reception from fans who chanted his name after Chelsea’s goals in last December’s win over Sunderland, the first game after his sacking. His relationship with the disciples turned dissenters on the playing staff was altogether more mixed.
It is an examination of them, and him. Nemanja Matic was the substitute he substituted after just 27 minutes last autumn. Diego Costa petulantly threw a bib at him after being dropped, with Mourinho responding by saying he was fortunate not to be omitted sooner. Eden Hazard removed himself in the Portuguese’s valedictory match, the defeat at Leicester, with Mourinho sarcastically asserting it must be a serious injury.
/origin-imgresizer.eurosport.com/2015/11/21/1736735-36732926-2560-1440.jpg)
Chelsea's Cesc Fabregas talks to manager Jose Mourinho
Image credit: Reuters
When he then accused players of “betraying” his work, they are three he may have in mind. Like Ferguson, he has an elephantine memory. Like Ferguson, he is a man to bear a grudge. Like Ferguson, he tends to indulge in mind games.
He can rail against enemies, both real and imagined. He can seek to undermine them. He can make things personal. Just ask Arsene Wenger, Claudio Ranieri, Rafa Benitez, Roberto Mancini or Pep Guardiola. “In this [press] room, he is the chief, the f*****g man,” the Catalan said, when rattled by Mourinho in 2012.
The probability is that affection for Chelsea, and the loyalty he has always commanded from their fans, will not prevent him from engaging in more psychological warfare. Winning has always been the end that has justifies all means for Mourinho. A draw may have the indication he has returned to familiar methods to secure those victories.
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement