The Special One: The Dark Side of Jose Mourinho

[Oh Buoy]

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/get-chelsea-christmas-sack-like-mourinho-5-delivered-kitbag-2354015

[amli]

Should have loaned him out to Vitesse for the rest of the season.

[clangers]

He's proven that he could produce results. This drop in form, as hilarious as it is, isn't the norm for him. He deserves to at least finish the season. Afterall, we gave Rodgers 3 years without anything to show for it.

Problem is trying to restore a failing side isn't the norm for Mourinho, he's taken over managing clubs in very dominant positions and led them to short-term success. They've probably done the right thing here, the relationship between the squad and manager had clearly broken down. For Chelsea, they've actually taken quite a long time to pull the trigger. The impression he's given over the last few months is of a manager hysterically unable to cope with the situation who has turned on his own squad rather than man-managing and leading the club through a period of transition.

 

Mourinho is an impact manager, his success is built upon the tension he creates internally. For a while at least that provokes a reaction from the players. His tenures are becoming relatively less successful, Madrid weren't unhappy to see the back of him after similar tensions within the squad surfaced along with the same confrontational responses from Mourinho.

 

His legacy is always winning trophies at a club over the short-term but there seems to be little in terms of long-term legacy left by him. He clearly isn't someone who builds infrastructure within a club.

 

Chelsea's problems will be adjusting to non CL football next season and trying to attract a top flight manager given their long history of firing managers.

[mattyq]

One can only hope

[Harry Squatter]

Piers Morgan "Jose Mourinho is the best manager on planet earth and arguably the best ever".

 

Ok mate

[aRdja]

Problem is trying to restore a failing side isn't the norm for Mourinho, he's taken over managing clubs in very dominant positions and led them to short-term success. They've probably done the right thing here, the relationship between the squad and manager had clearly broken down. For Chelsea, they've actually taken quite a long time to pull the trigger. The impression he's given over the last few months is of a manager hysterically unable to cope with the situation who has turned on his own squad rather than man-managing and leading the club through a period of transition.

 

Mourinho is an impact manager, his success is built upon the tension he creates internally. For a while at least that provokes a reaction from the players. His tenures are becoming relatively less successful, Madrid weren't unhappy to see the back of him after similar tensions within the squad surfaced along with the same confrontational responses from Mourinho.

 

His legacy is always winning trophies at a club over the short-term but there seems to be little in terms of long-term legacy left by him. He clearly isn't someone who builds infrastructure within a club.

 

Chelsea's problems will be adjusting to non CL football next season and trying to attract a top flight manager given their long history of firing managers.

You could be right, but the timing is very weird. He's not gonna get them relegated. A new manager is unliklky going to get them to win anything from this position. Why the rush? Maybe the likes of Cesc, Costa and Hazard have had enough.. "Either sack him or we're leaving" scenario would make sense.. But it wouldn't make it any better.

[Sputnik1]

 

 

[Captain]

What a shame he got the bullet. I was really enjoying the little tramp crumbling.

[Sputnik1]

 

Special Gone

[G Richards]

Just got home and catching up to the news. Can't say I'm surprised, but I am disappointed as I wanted it to last longer!

[Carvalho Diablo]

[Anubis]

Why was he hiding under his hood? Was he crying?

[Lario]

This is exactly why FSG got Klopp in when they did.

[whtwht]

This special one's losing it  :rolleyes:   

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onr90cyGtMI#t=108

[TheHowieLama]

This is exactly why FSG got Klopp in when they did.

 

The committee has played a blinder here.

[Anubis]

He's had enough. He's had enough. He's had enough.

[Jim MM]

Why was he hiding under his hood? Was he crying?

..because she's got a beard.

[Dr Nowt]

Why is it always the good ones who go too soon? This is like when Moyesy got canned. Very sad day indeed.

Sickeningly wasteful, isn't it.

 

The attitude of United then and Chelsea now is like John Sullivan having cut Fools and Horses off after a couple of seasons.

 

Fucking philistines.

[razor]

Reminds me of that Liverpool-obsessed cunt Giles Smith that writes for the Times and the Chelsea website. How did this go for you Giles?

 

 

 

There's no undue urgency, of course, but arguably the best time to start making up those lost fractions of a millimetre would be at home to Liverpool on Saturday lunchtime.

 

Our visitors have also endured an underpowered start to the season, which has recently led them to sack their manager and bring in a new one. Jurgen Klopp has been charged, like so many before him, with 'bringing the good times back to Anfield' and, in many ways, the likeable German immediately delivered on that with last week's 1-1 draw against 10-man Rubin Kazan in the Europa League. (These things are relative, after all.)

 

Anyway, the over-arching point here is that, confronted by a perceived crisis, Liverpool have opted for wholesale managerial change. Which, obviously, is one way of going about it. But it's not really our way. The Chelsea approach is more about having patience, showing faith and granting time, all with the longer view of fostering continuity. It's an approach rooted in history and a belief in deeply-rooted values - what you might call a 'boot room culture', I suppose.

 

But that's just different attitudes, I guess. Some clubs go after the instant gratification; others dedicate themselves to building something more lasting. 

 

Brilliant this.  Never heard of this writer before but I will be looking up his stuff over the coming weeks.

 

If there's one thing Chelsea Football Franchise is known for it's its unqualified rejection of instant gratification.

 

Unless you count buying a whole squad of mercenaries in 2004.  But that's just different attitudes, I guess...

[razor]

Shed no tears for the smug and unpleasant Mourinho

Slack of jaw and dull of wit, the fans paraded their protests at the gates of Stamford Bridge.

Their numbers were small but their capers caught the eye of the television cameras, as they intended. One man, louder and dafter than the rest, described Jose Mourinho as The Messiah. Depressingly, nobody laughed.

Mourinho himself would have been delighted by their adulation, thrilled by the furore his departure had provoked. The Prime Minister, no less, declared him 'one of the great characters of the game'.

Hitherto sane pundits informed us that a shining light had disappeared from the sport. Air-headed matrons scribbled acres of lurid tosh about the tragic loss of football's sexiest man.

 

[sorry, I have to interrupt here and point out that this article is, in fact from 22nd September 2007 by Patrick Collins!]

 

And as a sombre nation plunged into a period of mourning, my own thoughts turned to the men and women of the South Central Ambulance Service. If a single incident could capture the essential Mourinho, then it was surely the way he behaved towards those dedicated public servants at the Madejski Stadium last October.

You may recall the details: Chelsea's goalkeeper Petr Cech suffered a severe head injury following a collision with a Reading player. The paramedics treated him briskly and skilfully, but Mourinho later announced that Cech was: 'Thirty minutes in the dressing room, waiting for an ambulance . . . if my goalkeeper dies in that dressing room, it is something English football has to think about.'

In fact, the ambulance had arrived within seven minutes and Cech was in hospital just 19 minutes later. In seeking to make a cheap and vengeful point against a football club, a man earning a total of around £10 million per year was willing to smear scrupulously efficient public service workers who were earning a basic salary of £19,166.

Now, some might think that despicable, others would be less indulgent.

But at a time when history is being rewritten, when we are being encouraged to lament the passing of a red-blooded character who lightened our lives with his chirpy chatter and gave not a fig for stale convention, we do well to remember the way he defamed those ambulance workers.

But then,Mourinho was well practised in casual defamation.You will remember April 2005,when he traduced a respected referee named Anders Frisk by effectively accusing him of accepting a bribe from the Barcelona coach, Frank Rijkaard, during a Champions League tie with Chelsea. It was wicked nonsense, of course. And later, much later,Mourinho conceded his error. But Frisk received death threats which forced him into premature retirement, while Mourinho was given a brief touchline ban and a wrist-slapping fine.

Nor should we forget his vile and calculated slander of Arsene Wenger,which provided the moronic mobs with abusive ammunition: 'I think he is one of these — how do you call it in English?— voyeurs. He is someone who likes to watch other people.' He later added:'We have a file of quotes from Mr Wenger about Chelsea that is 120 pages.' So, not just foul-mouthed, but paranoid as well. The man simply reeked of class.

And his arrogance was unchecked.Just a few months ago,he accused Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo of showing him insufficient respect. This, he attributed to Ronaldo's 'difficult childhood', with 'no education'.

Mourinho is from a privileged background while his young fellow countryman was raised in harrowing poverty, but no compassion was shown. Sir Alex Ferguson's retort was withering: 'There are people from very poor backgrounds who have principles, whereas there are others who are educated but have no principles at all.

And that,without question, question, is the case here.' If all this suggests that I have little affection for Mourinho, then that impression is correct.

Of course, he has considerable ability; anybody who can win the Champions League with Porto is undeniably gifted.

Equally, anybody who cannot win the same prize after spending £186m of his Chelsea employer's improbable fortune may have questions to answer.

Sadly, accountability is not Mourinho's strongest suit.Self-promotion is his forte. I recall the day that Chelsea won their second Premiership title in April 2006.

While the players were celebrating, Mourinho sought to steal the limelight with a series of stage-school pouts. He threw his winner's medal into the crowd.

'I have one from last season,' he explained. 'I cannot keep everything I have. The man who caught it will go home with a fantastic memory — or he will go to ebay and make a fortune.'

Within three crass sentences,he reduced a resounding triumph to a squalid boast.

Now, there are several reasons why Chelsea are so widely disliked, from the clumpingly inept machinations of their chief executive, Peter Kenyon, to the mirthless posturing of Roman Abramovich. (Incidentally, did you ever see anything so assiduously rehearsed as his recent walk-out at Aston Villa?)

And did you ever see anything quite so hilariously absurd as the press conference at which Kenyon revealed all the presentational skills of David Brent? When he pledged undying loyalty to Avram Grant, although declining to award him a contract, one half expected Guus Hiddink to come blundering through a nearby curtain inquiring: 'When do I start?'

But I suspect the principal reason for their deep unpopularity can be traced to the man who was once their manager.

For all the money at his disposal, Mourinho failed to produce beautiful or thrilling or even routinely watchable football teams. Instead, he turned out sides which were difficult to beat. It wasn't nearly enough.

Sure, we must give him credit for his virtues. He constructed effective strategies and persuaded impressionable players to play for him.He greatly improved footballers like Joe Cole and John Terry, and he brought out the badge-kissing best in Frank Lampard.

YET he wanted to be recognised for something more than football. He saw himself as an original thinker, a man of ideas. And as the tributes gush,much is made of his latest intellectual spasm; the embarrassingly convoluted allegory involving supermarkets and superior omelettes. I am reminded of Gordon Strachan's response to Eric Cantona's iconic outburst all those years ago: 'If a Frenchman goes on about seagulls,trawlers and sardines, he's called a philosopher. I'd just be called a wee Scottish bum talking crap.'

Cantona justly deserved the rebuke.

But while we are on the subject of just deserts,we must not overlook the men and women of the South Central Ambulance Service, who continue to wait for an apology from the Special One.

As he rides off into the sunset, smiling his smugness and waving his wad,I suspect they are far from his thoughts. But they know the real worth of Jose Mourinho. He's not The Messiah. He's a rather unpleasant little man.

 

 

 

Some things just never change!

 

Lest we forget! - http://www.liverpoolway.co.uk/index.php?/topic/43676-bye-bye-jose/?p=736077

[razor]

Still enjoying this?

 

Here's another cracker...

 

'Tears, hugs and two icy handshakes'

Jose Mourinho's reign at Chelsea ended emotionally, with warm dressing-room embraces for 23 of his players - and a cold handshake for Andriy Shevchenko and skipper John Terry. His departure, though, was a long time coming. Duncan Castles reports

Sunday September 23, 2007; The Observer

Tuesday, 10pm, home dressing room, Stamford Bridge. Andriy Shevchenko is taking Michael Essien to task on his performance in the night's embarrassing 1-1 draw with Rosenborg. The former European footballer of the year tells Africa's finest midfielder that he tried to make too many passes through the centre of the Norwegians' formation where '70 percent of their players were'. Essien learns he should have been passing to the wings 'where they only had 30 percent of their men'.

Not the most insightful of tactical advice, but then these are not the thoughts of a Ukraine international, they are those of a Russian billionaire. Standing beside Shevchenko, tactics board in hand, Roman Abramovich is the man telling Essien how to play football. Shevchenko is merely there to translate. In another room, attending to the press, Mourinho is utterly unaware of his employer's actions.
Tuesday, 7:11pm, the home dressing room. Chelsea's squad of 18 are called out for their pre-match warm up. All the players step out for the carefully prepared drill - except one. John Terry remains sitting where he is. One of Jose Mourinho's assistants urges Terry out. Chelsea's captain refuses, swears, and, according to an eye witness, says he is upset and has 'things on my mind'. Terry is said to be furious after finding out that Mourinho had been asking in Chelsea's treatment room whether there was a medical reason for his perceived loss of form over recent weeks. The stand-off continues until a team-mate cajoles his friend out on to the pitch.

The game starts, Chelsea quickly lose a goal at a free kick as Miika Koppinen stretches ahead of Terry to turn in a near-post cross. Chelsea go in at half time 1-0 down and Jose Mourinho takes his captain to task, blaming the defender for the deficit. Terry says nothing but all his team-mates can see the anger on his face.

The pair had once been the closest of footballing allies, but within 24 hours Mourinho is no longer Terry's manager as Chelsea agree to a £10.5million pay-off to rid themselves of a man they describe as 'the most successful manager the club has known'.

'The relationship broke down not because of one detail or because of something that happened at a certain moment. It broke down over a period of time.' - Jose Mourinho, 21 September 2007.

To understand how the winner of two Premier League titles, two League Cups and one FA Cup, a man who averaged an unprecedented 2.33 points from his 120 Premiership games in just over three seasons, steadily became persona non grata at the club he made great, it is necessary to return to the summer of 2005.

'In Jose's first season everything was fine,' said a Chelsea employee who suffered the Abramovich guillotine long before the Portuguese. 'He came in, he won the title by miles, almost made the Champions League final, everyone was happy. But then it all began to go wrong. Peter Kenyon started thinking it was his genius as a chief executive that was important. Abramovich's mates were telling him his money had done it and any half-decent coach would win the league with those resources. They forgot that the most important man at any club is the manager.'

That summer, Chelsea poached Tottenham Hotspur's sporting director Frank Arnesen at a cost of £5m. Ostensibly recruited to revolutionise the club's sub-standard youth ranks, the Dane was actually brought in on the recommendation of Piet de Visser, a well-known Dutch talent scout who had advised Abramovich on football matters from his first months as Chelsea owner.

Arnesen and De Visser, friends and allies from their time together at Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, steadily worked to influence Abramovich's thinking on the first team, and, most importantly, player recruitment. Along with the agents Soren Lerby, Vlado Lemeic and Pini Zahavi they sought to steer Abramovich towards the purchase of certain footballers. Their objective, according to one source, was 'to get to Abramovich's money. To do that they needed power at the club, needed a manager who would do what they wanted. Mourinho was not that manager.'

Thus emerged a power struggle in which Arnesen and others seemed to undermine Mourinho by questioning him at every opportunity. When Mourinho went to war with Uefa over the actions of referees they told Abramovich his coach was embarrassing the club. When Mourinho's team dourly won key matches by a goal to nil, they told the owner a better coach would win by more goals and bring him far more flamboyant football. When a Mourinho signing failed to perform on the pitch, they told Abramovich that better players could be found elsewhere.

Within a year, and despite Mourinho's success in claiming a second successive Premiership, the manager had lost control of transfers. In the 2006 summer window, Mourinho asked the board to buy Samuel Eto'o; they spent a UK record £30m on Shevchenko. Chelsea sold William Gallas to Arsenal against Mourinho's wishes, and forced the £7m Khalid Boulahrouz upon him, while Arnesen compounded the error of allowing Chelsea's most effective defender to leave the club by pulling the plug on the £5m purchase of Micah Richards. Inside a season Richards was a full England international, while Boulahrouz was stinking out the reserves until Chelsea paid Sevilla to take him off their hands.

At least Mourinho could easily leave the Dutch defender out of the first team. A personal friend of Abramovich's, Shevchenko played regardless of his performances, and those were usually awful. In his first 26 appearances for Chelsea, the Ukrainian striker scored five goals. His coaches and team-mates often felt as though Chelsea were playing with 10 men and Mourinho was faced with a problem - should he leave out the owner's pal or lose the faith of the rest of the team?

As January approached, Mourinho asked to be allowed to sign a new striker. The board refused. Mourinho asked for a centre-back to cover for Terry, then sidelined with a serious back problem. The board offered him a choice between Alex, a Brazilian bought via De Visser and 'parked' at PSV for two seasons, and Tal Ben Haim, a Zahavi client. Mourinho wanted neither.

Worse still, Chelsea's manager was instructed to sack one of his assistants and add the Israeli Avram Grant to his coaching staff. When he refused, the club descended into open warfare.

Mourinho dropped Shevchenko from his first team, leaking the story to a national newspaper in an open challenge to Abramovich to sack him. On an emotional afternoon at Stamford Bridge the manager first rallied his team around him, then sent them out to overrun Wigan 4-0. Long before kick-off the Chelsea supporters were chanting 'Stand up for the Special One' through standing ovation after standing ovation.

An infuriated Abramovich ceased attending games and instructed his advisors to find a replacement coach. Mourinho let it be known that he would leave, but only on payment of the outstanding value of his contract - about £28m comprising £5.2m per annum for three-and-a-half years and up to £10m in bonuses. In the meantime he kept winning matches, pushing his injury-hit squad to within a few games of a remarkable quadruple.

Ultimately Chelsea won the League Cup and the FA Cup, forcing Abramovich to reconcile with his manager. A consciously 'mellow' Mourinho promised to avoid conflict with opposing managers and football authorities, accepted restrictions on his transfer budget, and reshaped his team in a more flamboyant 4-4-2 formation. Fatefully, he also acceded to the appointment of Grant as Chelsea's director of football.

Though some in Mourinho's camp had Grant pinned as a 'Mossad Spy' from the off, the manager attempted to work with him, holding long meetings with him during the club's staggeringly positive pre-season US tour and letting it be known that he welcomed his arrival as a buffer against Arnesen and route to Abramovich. The early-season optimism, however, swiftly evaporated.

Grant began calling individual players aside to ask them questions.

'You look sad, why?' 'How do you feel in this position?' 'Is this the best place for you to play?' 'Are we using your abilities well?' Because many of them complained about this to Mourinho, the manager decided to cut back radically on team meetings, the only one this season having been arranged for the Jewish New Year when Grant had returned to Israel.

While Grant looked on at training, Shevchenko treated it with disdain. A morose, lonely figure around the camp, he seemed to show more interest in improving his golf swing than his shooting. As the first team prepared for their final pre-season friendly against Danish side Brondby, Shevchenko declared himself unfit with a back problem. A 2-0 victory ensured the £121,000-a-week striker was not missed, but Mourinho was bemused to discover that Shevchenko's bad back had not prevented him from enjoying a round of golf at Sunningdale that day.

The board, though, were not interested and the club's descent continued. Other players began to realise what was happening, that the summer's peace was a false one, that their manager had no support from the top. 'The mentality became weaker and weaker,' said one insider. 'You could feel the team's strength sapping away.'

Mourinho knew his time at Chelsea was coming to an end. At Uefa's forum for elite coaches in Geneva a fortnight ago he allowed Premier League rivals an insight into his thinking. 'Mourinho said he loved Chelsea and he loved English football, but thought he would not stay for long,' said one coach. 'One of us asked him why. He wouldn't answer, but it was obvious something was seriously wrong.'

His next Champions League match brought the end. On Wednesday afternoon the board asked Mourinho to resign, citing his handling of Shevchenko, his attitude to authority and, crucially, his relationship with Terry as reasons why he should go. Mourinho refused to walk, and fought only to maximise his pay-off as Chelsea apparently threatened to call club employees to testify against him at any employment tribunal.

A £10.5m pay-off was agreed and the following morning Mourinho made a final trip to the training centre at Cobham to pick up his possessions and say goodbye to his squad. There was a message in each farewell. For most there was a Latin embrace and warm words of thanks. For Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard the emotions were so strong that both men were reduced to tears, Lampard retreating to the shower room in an attempt to hide his. For Shevchenko and Terry there was nothing but a handshake that, in the words of one observer, could have 'frozen a mug of tea'. No one was in any doubt about who he considered the true captains of his team.

Out with the old, in with the new. Furious at Mourinho's dismissal, senior players describe Grant's appointment as 'a disgrace'. Some at Cobham call him 'an idiot' and describe his coaching techniques as '25 years behind the times'. Abramovich pushes the Israeli around 'without a hint of respect'.

Former academy coach Brendan Rogers has been drafted in to help out with the first team, a promotion that may not be unconnected to the one-on-one training sessions he gave Abramovich's son. Only in Steve Clarke is there the level of football knowledge to deal with a squad full of international superstars. As the sole survivor of Mourinho's cadre of four assistant managers, the Scotsman has an unenviable task.

But then neither he nor Grant will be picking the team. As Michael Essien discovered on Tuesday night, the new manager of Chelsea is also the owner.

 

http://www.liverpoolway.co.uk/index.php?/topic/43676-bye-bye-jose/?p=734559

 

In the case of Big Brave JT, lightning really has struck twice!  "JT - undermining managers since 2007: Captain, Leader, Legend"

[index1000]

It's dumb as nobody will move them to top four.  The team is the same, the manager is the same that won the league last year.   Unless Mourinho has suffered a total meltdown, the decision is dumb.  Short term Russkie bullshit.  

 

Yes, the mega criminal has an option to throw 20 million a season to Guardiola.  But that is also dumb, not football anymore, and again 2-3 seasons max, and another dude in.  For now they need a "Rafa" to sort things out.  I think most of those are things that maybe would not need sorting out, just waiting out.   Normal Mourinho would have got them around 5-6 in the league from where they are now.  That's the max for anyone else.

 

The question is if the "normal Mourinho" exists anymore.  And if he could have built something, for once, this was probably his chance.

 

Then again, they all deserve each other at Chelski...

I would neg you for that shite but i only neg The woolster. still, it should be negged for sounding like a fucking Tom Clancy novel.

[Ne Moe Imya]

Former academy coach Brendan Rogers has been drafted in to help out with the first team, a promotion that may not be unconnected to the one-on-one training sessions he gave Abramovich's son. 

 

Hmmmm.

[njackets]

I reckon people are underestamating the Terry Influence in the dressing room, you upset that cunt and thats it, if he'd have signed Stones and fucked Terry off somewhere he'd still be in a job now I reckon.

[Dr Nowt]

Shed no tears for the smug and unpleasant Mourinho

 

 

Knew for sure that was Collins as soon as I saw the word tosh. Think he inherited it from Ian Wooldridge when he retired.