SPECIAL EFFECTS PAST THEIR BEST
JOSE MOURINHO was once box office – but his time on the big screen turned into a horror show.
How bad does it have to get to be given the sack less than a week before that manager is supposed to lead his team into a major cup final?
The sages on social media are now having huge fun at the expense of Mourinho, who might have even been measured up for his new threads ahead of Sunday’s Carabao Cup final.
But instead of walking out at Wembley all suited and booted this weekend, the self-styled Special One now looks like the man with all the gear but no idea.
A man living on past glories who has blown all his credit in the bank – and then some.
A man top-level football has left behind, someone who has had too much dirt kicked in his face by the likes of Pep Guardiola, Thomas Tuchel, Jurgen Klopp, Hansi Flick and even Mauricio Pochettino.
Just 17 months (is it only that long?) have passed since Tottenham supremo Daniel Levy decided to sack Pochettino and replace him with Mourinho.
It was like sticking all your chips on red and then seeing the roulette wheel stop on black.
Pochettino had led Tottenham to their first-ever Champions League final the season before. Mourinho, meanwhile, led Spurs out of the Europa League last month because he couldn’t outwit those giants from Croatia, Dinamo Zagreb.
In the meantime, Pochettino’s Paris St-germain side await a sensational semi-final showdown with Manchester City in the last four of European football’s elite competition.
Levy was playing with fire when he appointed Mourinho, because the Portuguese is as combustible as managers come.
He proved this in his second spell with Chelsea, then repeated the feat with a similar meltdown at Manchester United.
High-profile but highmaintenance, Mourinho is no longer capable of delivering the sort of success that justifies the price that comes with it.
He was won just two trophies in the last five seasons. In that same time, his nemesis Guardiola has trousered eight and counting while Klopp has won four, including the Premier League title and Champions League. English football has now turned its back on Mourinho and it should be for the final time. His latest dismissal boils down to two things.
Results have been nowhere near good enough while Mourinho has not made one single player better since he arrived in North London.
Harry Kane might be having another standout season in which he is scoring goals for fun but let’s be honest, a muppet could manage the England captain and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference.
All you have to do is tell him to put his boots on the right feet and send him out onto the pitch.
He guided Spurs to sixth last season and the team is now seventh.
Mourinho has suffered 10 league defeats in a single campaign for the first time in his managerial career while no side has lost more points from winning positions this season than his (20).
Having signed Spurs up for the European Super League, perhaps Levy is using some of the millions in advance to settle Mourinho’s latest compensation bill?
Who knows what goes on between the ears of these people any more, but what we do know is that Mourinho has now got what he deserved.
Having spent most of this season throwing his stars under the bus, he has now been squashed himself.
But it still won’t be his fault. It never is.