Chelsea just an upmarket Villa
VIEWED through a timeline of tear-ups, Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho are not so very different. Rows with referees, rows with rivals, rows with the Football Association and wild conspiracy theories. Tick. Unhappy endings with star players such as Jaap Stam, David Beckham, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Roy Keane. Tick, tick, tick and tick.
Ferguson never lost the players, though, because so many felt as keenly for Manchester United as he did. They were not all home produced, but the names are legion: Bryan Robson, Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister, Brian McClair, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt, Darren Fletcher, Ole Gunnar Solskj jaer, Jonny Evans, Wes Brown.
So, whoever was feeling moody and no matter how tense the relationship between players and manager, the club stayed protected. Even if the group had lost faithh in Ferguson, they possesseded a sense of pride thatt would not let Manchester United fail, too.
It isn’t the same at Chelsea. The reason this season fell apart so dramatically once the players’ bond with Mourinho soured is that,t, at heart, too many of the he squad are just passingsing through.
John Terry is the only first-team regular who enjoys the tie to Chelsea that, say, Giggs has with Manchester United, and those who may have shared that loyalty — Frank Lampard, Petr Cech, even Didier Drogba — are now gone. If those players had tired of Mourinho, it is unthinkable that they would have allowed the club to sink into a relegation battle.
Yet while Chelsea’s recruitment policy may produce success — and a steady income stream through the sale of developing players — it is not designed to weather such a storm of this intensity. When the schism with Mourinho happened, few possessed sufficient love for Chelsea to deflect greater damage.
Jamie Carragher said he didn’t play for any one club manager; he played for Liverpool. It is this simple devotion that is missing at Chelsea. In retreat this season, Chelsea have not looked all that different from floundering clubs such as Aston Villa, Sunderland and Newcastle; they are merely an upmarket version.
Just as the doomed invariably lack a common identity, so do Chelsea. The difference is the level of investment. Diego Costa £32million, Cesc Fabregas £30m, Eden Hazard £25m, Oscar £25m, Nemanja Matic £21m — for these fees Chelsea are entitled to expect a higher level of attainment than the majority of rivals.
They are not buying potential but polished products. Yet, equally, they are not receiving long-term commitment, either. One does not imagine any of those expensive recruits sitting in a Chelsea tracksuit on the bench one day, like Giggs. One does not see them as club ambassadors like Robson, either. These are guns for hire — and powerful guns, too. Yet they did not feel for Chelsea with sufficient passion to arrest this slide.
There has been a lot of emotion on social media since Mourinho left — Fabregas, Terry and Cesar Azpilicueta among those paying tribute — but precious little physical evidence. Hazard attempting to run off his hip problem against Leicester for all of three footsteps is an image that will live long in the memory, particularly if he recovers in time to start against Sunderland today, or scores his first goal for the club since May 3.
Hazard has played 28 games this season, 24 for Chelsea and four for Belgium. He has scored in none of his Chelsea games and each one of Belgium’s internationals. Footballer of the Year last season, an empty vessel this, is he so different from the underachieving inferiors at Chelsea’s relegation rivals? His ability is far greater, yes — Mourinho compared him to Cristiano Ronaldo last season, without exaggeration — but his application? Is he not just another in the ranks of the temporary?
It is perhaps appropriate, then, that the ultimate hired hand is now widely anticipated to succeed Mourinho — at least until the end of this season. Guus Hiddink, late of PSV Eindhoven, Fenerbahce, Valencia, Real Madrid, Real Betis, South Korea, Australia, Russia, Chelsea, Turkey, Anzhi Makhachkala and Holland, looks likely to arrive at Stamford Bridge for his second spell as an interim solution.
It is a bizarrely modern phenomenon, the interim. Here’s a manager we don’t fancy enough to give him the job permanently — but he’ll do until someone better comes along. It is to Hiddink’s credit that he emerged with his reputation intact from his first such arrangement at the club.
If anything, second time around should be easier. Hiddink does not have to be brilliant, he just has to be Not Jose. Simply being Not Jose should bring improvement from the players, and Chelsea have a better squad than just about every team above them.
It’s the dream job and a return to familiar territory for the coach once tagged Lucky Guus. The reason Hiddink is available to be the interim Not Jose is that he presided over a collapse in form every bit as astonishing as Chelsea’s under Mourinho this season. Hiddink was the coach of the Dutch team that failed to qualify for Euro 2016 – the easiest European Championship in the history of the tournament, the one with 24 teams that could be reached from third place in a group of six.
Iceland, Albania and Northern Ireland all made it through without needing the play-offs, yet Holland somehow came fourth, five points adrift of Turkey, although Hiddink had already been dismissed by the time the campaign ended.
This remains one of the biggest failures in modern football. Not dissimilar to the Premier League champions lying 16th after 16 games. Mourinho, an intelligent man, would appreciate the irony there; although maybe not right now.
Never mind Hiddink’s flop — all he has to be is Not Jose