After events at the King Power Stadium and Stamford Bridge in the past week the commentator who predicted Chelsea would win the league and said Leicester looked vulnerable must be feeling really foolish. Believe me, he is, though he is not alone. Back in summer it was hardly going out on a limb to suggest José Mourinho remained a smart manager while Claudio Ranieri appeared a strange choice for a relegation struggle.
Five months into the season the mistake is obvious. Instead of continuing to wind up Arsène Wenger and Manuel Pellegrini after impressive results against their leading teams and generally give the impression he knows how to out-think every opponent, José Mourinho has led his team into a relegation struggle. He has no particular expertise in that area and has just paid the price. Ranieri has no expertise in that area either but has successfully avoided putting the matter to the test.
By the ingenious expedient of keeping his side in the top four all the time, Ranieri has been able to concentrate instead on refining Leicester’s impressive counterattacking game, giving space to Jamie Vardy and freedom to Riyad Mahrez, leaving others to worry about grinding out results and moving up a place or two at the bottom.
While the fate of the two managers might have been easier to predict had it been clear from the outset that Leicester would be high-fliers and Chelsea would bomb, the question has to be why expectations have been turned on their head in such a short time. Chelsea were champions last season, Leicester relegation candidates, though the latter did put together a tidy run of results towards the end to save their skins. If Ranieri has built on that fighting spirit, recognising the bones of a good team and adding a few tactical tweaks of his own, fair play to him and congratulations to Leicester’s recruitment department.
Chelsea have just witnessed Mourinho doing almost the opposite. He started with a good team but turned proven winners into regular losers, introducing doubt and hesitancy where previously there was only certainty.
Can it be true, as some suggest, that it all stemmed from his deplorable treatment of Eva Carneiro and the club’s medical staff in the opening game of the season? There is no doubt that needless episode won Mourinho few friends, and quite possibly opened divisions within the dressing room, though it is important to remember that Swansea left London with a point from a 2-2 draw.
Thibaut Courtois was sent off, the home side let an early lead slip, it was hardly the slickest of Chelsea starts even before the attendant controversy. The possibility exists that Mourinho was already frustrated, dissatisfied with the way his players were responding to his instructions, which was why he felt the need to project the blame on to someone else.
Thus the tone was set for a season that went quickly downhill but, if Mourinho was unhappy with his players on day one, it lends credence to the notion that the manager’s demands are so intense and unrelenting that an adverse reaction is almost built in.
The three-season theory would seem to have some foundation, in other words. Certainly Demba Ba’s insight into life under Mourinho backs up the idea that the manager drives players hard without always considering the consequences. “He demands a huge amount,” the former Chelsea striker said. “It’s very tiring, exhausting.”
Even more damning was the “palpable discord” between players and coach that the technical director, Michael Emenalo, spoke of in the wake of Mourinho’s dismissal. This is clearly not something that has come about in the last couple of weeks. It is more likely to date back to summer, though it would be ironic were it found to have arisen from the club’s shortened pre-season since Mourinho has explained that as an attempt to give the players a proper rest and avoid fatigue later in the campaign. Whatever the intention, Mourinho began his season by losing to Wenger for the first time in his career, in the Community Shield, and ended up losing also to Pellegrini, Ranieri, Roberto Martínez, Eddie Howe, Mark Hughes, Slaven Bilic, Jürgen Klopp, Ronald Koeman and Alan Pardew before the axe fell in time to prevent Sam Allardyce adding his name to the list.
The immediate task for his successor is to avoid relegation, which has not previously formed part of Roman Abramovich’s hiring remit. Guus Hiddink was tremendous last time, though that was a different Chelsea and the Dutch manager himself has picked up some blots on his CV since the days when only an obscure Norwegian referee denied him a shot at being the first Champions League winner in the club’s history.
While Hiddink should be good at reuniting the squad, his credentials as a firefighter are less obvious. Unlike Ranieri he will not have the option of seizing the high ground and staying out of trouble. Chelsea are already in trouble and this time there seems no possibility of the players sticking to their previous good habits as a tight, focused group to make a new manager’s life simpler.
Hiddink has already called it a bad situation and, as Allardyce has pointed out, it will not reflect well on the players if they suddenly seem more like their old selves under a new manager.
Mourinho seems as far from establishing a dynasty as ever and, if he is to become the first coach to win three European Cups with different clubs, he will have to choose his next move carefully. There are only a certain number of teams capable of helping him fulfil the dream, the list keeps shortening and increasingly it looks as though the two-year wonder that was 2008-10 Internazionalenazionale is going to be the template.
Manchester United keep getting mentioned and after another few months of Louis van Gaal they will probably be desperate enough, though the reasons Old Trafford set its face against Mourinho in the first place not only still stand but have just been reinforced. If United would like to reacquaint themselves with Champions League finals in the next two or three years they should give Mourinho a shout. If the brief is still to stick around for a decade or so without getting on anyone’s nerves, then forget it.
The key to longevity is adaptability. Sir Alex Ferguson changed enormously during his time at the club, mellowing, learning how to delegate, even backing off when necessary. As Mourinho seems unwilling or unable to do the same, he is destined to remain a high-end, quick-fix solution.
Yet as Woody Allen nearly said, as high-end, quick-fix solutions go, he is one of the best. Unlikable as he sometimes was, Mourinho undeniably lent lustre to the English game.
Perhaps Pellegrini, by no means an unconditional admirer, summed up the situation best. “I wouldn’t say I will miss him but the Premier League will,” Manchester City’s manager said. “This country has just lost a good manager.”
