WHAT’S REALLY EATING JOSE?
Frustration at struggles of Costa and Co for form Impatient for signings to boost f lagging squad Now tirade at Dr Eva shows just how much the manager is worrying...
SPEAK to the powers that be at Chelsea and they will tell you they knew what they were getting. They would concede that every once in a while they will listen in to a Jose Mourinho Press conference and think: ‘I wish he hadn’t said that.’
But having just awarded him a four-year contract, owner Roman Abramovich and his key lieutenants in Bruce Buck, Eugene Tenenbaum and Marina Granovskaia at least went into this pact knowingly.
With Mourinho, they understand, you have to accept the whole package. Managers like this are a special breed, runs the reasoning in the Chelsea boardroom.
It is just that Mourinho is more special than others when it comes to creating controversy.
In a week in which he has needlessly made Chelsea the focus of the front pages, attracted unwanted political attention and put the club in an excruciating position regarding their employment of first-team doctor Eva Carneiro and physio Jon Fearn, it would be extraordinary if the Chelsea powerbrokers did not occasionally despair of the Mourinho package.
Even among the manager’s litany of polemical interventions, last week’s tirade delivered at Carneiro and Fearn was perhaps the most explosive yet, certainly in terms of causing maximum damage to the club and for no discernible reason.
Chelsea are proud of their diversity. Technical director Michael Emenalo is black, Granovskaia is one of the few female directors and Carneiro one the few female doctors in football. Yet suddenly they were put on the back foot by their manager, looking as if they were bullying a female staff member who is already abused by opposition fans.
It is hard to see how Carneiro can resume her duties as normal when she returns to work tomorrow and she has told friends that she has sought independent legal advice. Constructive dismissal after her removal from match-day responsibilities would seem the most likely conclusion.
Mourinho is precious about his bench. On the club’s American tour three weeks ago, he berated a member of administrative staff whom he saw using his phone while on the bench during the game against New York Red Bulls. ‘I didn’t like that,’ said Mourinho. ‘He was working. But the bench is not for that.’
Later on the tour he reprimanded goalkeeping coach Christophe Lollichon for giving an interview. He hates backroom staff having unnecessary profile, so Carneiro’s Facebook post thanking the public for their support was always going to rile him.
But even Mourinho, calculating as he is in using controversy as a smokescreen, could not have intended to create as putrid a mess as this. In private, he must realise he has misjudged the issue on every level: medically, politically and in terms of public relations.
Something is amiss. It is impossible for Mourinho to be inscrutable. When he is worried, it shows and that can be the only explanation for last weekend’s outburst. In Montreal, in pre-season training, he seemed relatively relaxed. The issue of whether the club would sign John Stones nagged away throughout the tour and the failure to do so may be part of his angst, but otherwise he seemed to have accepted that his side could win the title without major additions; that everyone could improve to keep their superiority.
Four weeks on, that doesn’t seem to be the message. ‘That’s what I said in pre-season,’ he said. ‘If we are not buying a lot, the way to compete against the improvement of other teams is that we have to be better.
‘But are we right or wrong? Do we need a couple of players to create some improvement or no? But the reality is this: when you have direct opponents, economically powerful, institutionally powerful, they want to react.’
Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool all reacted, so too Arsenal in taking Petr Cech. Meanwhile Mourinho’s players are not where he thought they would be. He gambled on giving them a month’s holiday, coming back a week later than most clubs and flying in from the USA four days before the Community Shield.
In doing so he allowed Arsene Wenger to score personal points off him at Wembley, Swansea to take a point last weekend and faces the prospect of being five points behind City two games in. All from a team that prided themselves on setting the pace last season.
Diego Costa’s hamstrings look a risk too far; Branislav Ivanovic has started awfully; Cesar Azpilicueta has looked off the pace; Asmir Begovic — in goal today and a transfer request of Mourinho’s — had a terrible debut against the Red Bulls; Radamel Falcao, of whom Mourinho was so sure a few weeks ago, still has it all to prove as a Premier League striker.
Then, there was no urgency for reinforcements. Now, there has been a shift in emphasis. He may back his team — they may be all he has come September 2 — but the tone has changed.
‘If we don’t have an improvement based on a couple of new players, I still believe in the improvement of my players and my team,’ he said. ‘If we have one new player or a couple of new players, [then] welcome. Better. You know that a defender we are going to do for sure, for sure.’
Augsburg left back Baba Rahman, is coming, but the Bundesliga club considered selling him for £5million last year and are poised to get £20m. Important though it is to have a replacement for Filipe Luis, he is not the man to shake up the squad.
Chelsea are stalling on a new bid
for Stones. You might expect the £24m offer to increase in the final week of August and you have the feeling Mourinho is impatient for that. You suspect that another striker or a creative midfielder would further elevate Chelsea. But they are not the club they once were.
The board insist that they could still make a £50m signing if they wished, and Mourinho said: ‘Chelsea is Chelsea. And Mr Abramovich is Mr Abramovich. And the board has worked so well, over the years, in making money with sales. If one day Chelsea wants to make a very important buy, I think Chelsea has economic conditions for that and also moral conditions for that.’
But they declined to get involved in a bidding battle with today’s opponents City over Raheem Sterling. Despite Financial Fair Play restrictions, it is a war they could not have won. City, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Barcelona will always have more money than Chelsea now. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Mourinho. But ultimately it does. And that is his problem at present.