José Mourinho has worn this haunted expression before – the one of utter bewilderment while battling back an inward sense of shock, with eyebrows raised in resignation at how powerless he had been rendered by his team’s abject deficiencies out on the grass of this arena. Retreat to the first half of last season and he had offered up the same facade to the world from a few yards further down the touchline as Crystal Palace, Liverpool, Southampton and Bournemouth came and ransacked what he had once considered a fortress.
This time the colour drained from his cheeks as he stood, pained and alone, from his adopted position in the away team’s technical area and surveyed the wreckage of his worst defeat in English football. There was exasperation to his reaction to N’Golo Kanté jinking round Chris Smalling and Paul Pogba before sliding in his first Chelsea goal with 20 minutes of this hellish return still to endure. The Manchester United manager spun on his heels, taking a mouthful of water before demanding his flustered assistant, Rui Faria, explain why the visitors’ defence had disintegrated, why they had simply melted away. This was all too spineless.
By the end his irritation overtook him with a lengthy, rasping critique in his opposite number’s ear apparently born of disgust at Antonio Conte’s reaction, whipping the crowd up into even more of a frenzy, after Kanté had registered his reward. “Do that at 1-0, not at 4-0,” he was supposed to have said in Italian, as reported by Sky Italia, with the implication very much that those manic celebrations had been a deliberate attempt to humiliate. That seemed a bit rich from a figure prone to the odd bout of inflammatory behaviour on the touchline but it betrayed a manager frazzled by this thrashing. It was not supposed to be like this.
This whole occasion was about as far removed as possible from Mourinho’s last return as an opponent to Stamford Bridge. In March 2010 he had been welcomed as a returning hero for a Champions League knockout tie, with players who used to be his hugging him in the tunnel as if still, on some level, in awe of the man who had twice led them to the title. His name had been chorused by a crowd overjoyed by the return of a favourite son. Yet here he went largely ignored pre-match by those Chelsea players starting the game, with the substitutes John Terry, Oscar and Willian offering the hugs and handshakes at the mouth of the tunnel.
Likewise the spectators’ focus was more on the 20th anniversary of the vice-chairman Matthew Harding’s death, and they barely acknowledged the opposing manager until the fourth goal had been scored and United were sunk. Then they bellowed his name although, while he did offer a half-wave to those in the stands, it was not entirely clear whether or not the locals were taunting the away support for the manager imposed on them. Certainly the atmosphere in this game was more raucous than it had been through much of his second spell in charge, when his criticisms about playing in front of an “empty” stadium had hit a few nerves. “But, for sure, the crowd reaction was not negative,” he said. “It had no reason to be. What would they have against me, or me against them? Nothing. Everything was like it should be. Calm.”
Deep down, however, the indifference must have hurt. The real pain, however, had been endured out on the pitch. Six years ago Internazionale had been resilient, aggressive and ruthless with Samuel Eto’o’s only goal claiming the contest. United were dishevelled and ill-disciplined, panicky and playing catch-up after 30 seconds, put to the sword by a lineup still crammed with the players who Mourinho feared had “betrayed” his work as his second coming unravelled. A quintet of those who began for the hosts here had also started the Portuguese’s last game in charge of this club, at Leicester last December. On that Monday night the ailing champions had lost for the ninth time in 16 matches to hover a point from the cut-off. The Portuguese and his staff had worked all week to negate the threat posed by Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez only for both to score.
Eden Hazard had limped off after half an hour at the King Power stadium, overcome by a hip complaint and making clear to the bench he could not continue. The game had been goalless when he retired from the fray. Yet here was the Belgian performing like a man possessed, ripping his own goal beyond David de Gea and, in tandem with Marcos Alonso, tormenting United’s right flank. Nemanja Matic had provided the glorious pass for Hazard to collect and convert, the Serb another who was unrecognisable here from the rather diminished figure whose form had so evaporated over the first half of last season. Matic had been a colossus of the 2015 title-winning team. The subsequent collapse of his form had mirrored that of Gary Cahill, Branislav Ivanovic, Oscar, Thibaut Courtois and Cesc Fàbregas and blunted even Diego Costa. There had been no attempt to persuade David Luiz to stay. Others, like Victor Moses, were never given a chance at all.
Conte had suggested many still bear the scars from that traumatic period. Plenty of the players booed by the home support following Mourinho’s sacking have struggled to repair their reputations. For those lucky enough to feature here, it must have felt cathartic.
That might partly explain the home side’s particularly joyous reaction to Kanté’s goal, led by Hazard and David Luiz, re-signed in the summer, while Mourinho stood perplexed by his dugout. He will have taken no comfort that his presence can still provoke a performance from Chelsea. This was a return to forget.
