STAMFORD BRIDGE SHOWDOWN
Mourinho is not their Special One any more and moving to United was the last straw...
This time, when Jose Mourinho returns to stamford Bridge, it will be different. The bond is broken and the aura is gone.
When he came back with inter Milan, Chelsea fans were still singing his name with feeling and his grey coat hung in the museum like a designer garment of wonder. senior players like Frank Lampard were in regular contact.
All of which helped as inter claimed victory. But if Manchester United leave with three points tomorrow it will not be because the Bridge is still entranced by the special One.
handshakes, smiles and applause there will be; a warm appreciation of what he achieved, sure, but Mourinho will find the adoring masses have thinned out in sW6.
Where they were once united in worship they are divided.
The banner in his name is no longer found in its usual place, even on the days when there is no tribute to Matthew harding as there will be tomorrow.
One writer in the popular Chelsea fanzine cfcuk now replaces letters in Mourinho’s name with asterisks, a sign of distaste normally preserved for those with Tottenham
‘Second time round at the club he was the miserable one’
connections. some were loyal to him until the end, branding the players as ‘rats’ and singing the manager’s name after he had gone. But this love story was soured by a simmering dispute with supporters.
Flippant remarks about fans lacking passion were not well received, especially comparing them unfavourably to Liverpool’s support after four thousand travelled north for a midweek League Cup semi-final at Anfield.
At a Champions League tie in slovenia, days after he claimed stamford Bridge felt like an ‘empty stadium’, the travelling supporters taunted him with a chorus of: ‘Jose give us a song’.
Mourinho was furious when they saluted Lampard after his goal against Chelsea for Manchester City and made it clear through fans’ groups that he did not want to hear the Lampard song in the away end.
‘second time around, he wasn’t the special one and he wasn’t the happy one, he was the miserable one,’ said Dave Johnstone of cfcuk.
Perhaps it was worth all the aggravation as he delivered another Premier League title, his third, but the great unravelling last year exposed damage to his relationship at all levels of the club. Underperforming players tired of the public criticism and stopped playing for him, literally in some cases.
Eden hazard walked off in his final game, at Leicester. he was suffering from a nagging injury, was kicked again and decided to soldier on in pain no longer.
Those selected by current manager Antonio Conte against Leicester last week included only three signed by Mourinho: Diego Costa, Nemanja Matic and Pedro. Victor Moses, thriving at wing back, admits he barely ever spoke to his old boss.
John Terry is still around but Conte’s players are not pining for the departed boss like Avram Grant’s team did in 2007.
‘You fall in love with him and he becomes your idol,’ said Andre Villas-Boas, former Chelsea manager and a coach under Mourinho.
‘Then you fall on the wrong side of Jose and that’s when things change and you realise that you’ve been blinded.’
At stamford Bridge, it feels as if others have experienced the AVB enlightenment.
The dispute with the club doctor Eva Carneiro went down badly. At board level not everyone agreed with Roman Abramovich’s idea to bring him back in the first place.
When he was dismissed in December last year, a statement from technical director Michael Emenalo spoke of ‘ palpable discord’ and refused to name the departed manager, preferring to call him ‘the individual’.
Last time, Abramovich bought him a Ferrari by way of thanks. Now Mourinho claims they were never really friends.
Plans to celebrate the memory of harding at the United game to mark 20 years since his death will distract from Mourinho’s return.
harding is one of their own at the Bridge; a charismatic self-made millionaire who ploughed a considerable part of his fortune into the hard-up club he loved.
After he was killed in a helicopter accident on the way home from a League Cup defeat at Bolton, the North stand was renamed in his honour.
‘Matthew was a fan first and foremost,’ said scott Minto, scorer of the last Chelsea goal harding saw.
‘i’m sure he is up there loving the success Chelsea have achieved under Roman Abramovich.
‘he was very much part of the building process because he backed Glenn hoddle, who set Chelsea on course to where they are with his style of football and the players he was able to attract.’
One was Ruud Gullit, playermanager by the time harding died.
‘he initiated the Chelsea we have today,’ said Gullit. ‘he wanted the best for the club and wanted to buy the players to make it possible for Chelsea to grow.’
Under Gullit, seven months after harding’s death, they won the FA Cup, a first major trophy in 26 years. in the Abramovich era they have won 13 in 13 years, seven delivered by Mourinho. Among them a first title in half a century. This cannot be airbrushed from history.
Chelsea fans are usually generous towards returning heroes. it will be a shock if they turn on a manager who built a great team which endured for years and returned to win a third title with a team lacking the same character.
he was sacked twice, he did not walk. he is smart enough to tread carefully with what he does and says.
And yet this return feels different. The cord is cut, the move to Manchester United his Rubicon. There are those who think it was the job he wanted all along.