Chelsea sack manager José Mourinho after disastrous start to title defence

[the4thjuliek.livejournal.com]

José Mourinho said his work had been ‘betrayed’ at Chelsea by the efforts of his players. Photograph: Jason Dawson/REX/Shutterstock

Chelsea have parted company with manager José Mourinho. The Portuguese returned to the club in 2013 and won the Premier League title last season, but having sunk to 16th place in the table, the Stamford Bridge outfit have dismissed their manager.

Mourinho’s side have lost nine league games this season, the worst defence of a Premier League title ever. The latest loss was to Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester City, 2-1 at the King Power Stadium. Afterwards Mourinho took the unusual step of criticising his players. “I feel my work is betrayed,” he said. “I worked four days in training for this match. I identified four movements where Leicester score a lot of their goals and in two of the four situations I identified they scored their goals. I went through it all with the players, you can ask them.”

After the defeat it had seemed a matter of when, not if, Chelsea’s owner Roman Abramovich would act, with the club in real danger of slipping into the relegation zone over the crowded festive period.

When asked after the Leicester defeat if he could hold on to his job, Mourinho said: “The only thing I can say is that I want to. I have no doubts and I think you know me well enough, three years this time, plus three years another time, that I am not afraid of a big challenge, and in this moment this is a real big challenge. I want to stay, I hope Mr Abramovich and the board want me to stay.”


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Comments

NOOOOOOOOOO

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

Damn it! I have such conflicted feelings over Mourinho. A Liebestod if you will.

Love in that he's the one who seduced me into watching PL football, and even flirted with following Chelsea because of him. I bought an LG phone because he advertised it, and when he said that he was 'a special one', he was the shocking daub of colour against the grey haired, grey faced coaches of the game. Because of him, I started to understand what the notion of tactics was about, how Mourinho created a slight of hand with personality, charm and a good Aramani suit, to the honours that he racked up.

In the same breath, Mourinho hastened a death - he of the 'proven' over the academy talents, which hastened the distance of football from hometown lads to the professional disinterest of foreigners; of tying a big money spend to a team as much as a moral virtue. Himself and Abramovich turned the game from what it was to what it is now: the star footballer, the manager as cult of personality, putting media in the forefront of newspaper copy. The notion of tension and fireworks, although it quickened one's imagination, and fired up the red tops, just undid him in the end. Mourinho, I followed you from Chelsea, to Madrid, and back to the PL once more. I'll see you in my google mentions.

:*(

RE: NOOOOOOOOOO

[pullhimdown.livejournal.com]

In the same breath, Mourinho hastened a death - he of the 'proven' over the academy talents, which hastened the distance of football from hometown lads to the professional disinterest of foreigners; of tying a big money spend to a team as much as a moral virtue. Himself and Abramovich turned the game from what it was to what it is now: the star footballer, the manager as cult of personality, putting media in the forefront of newspaper copy.

I have a fuckton of conflicting feelings about the guy, but come on with the bolded parts. The guy doesn't care much about youth academies, that's true, but it's very disingenuous to tie him to big money spending on a team. How much money was Inter worth when he won the CL with them? The guy made a world class player out of Maniche, for fuck's sake. Maniche. Let that sink in for a moment. Blame him for everything else--the personality cult and the use of media is spot on--but that one's bullshit. He likes older player over youth team newbies and that's a lot that can be said for that, but what he did in Porto or Inter was not due to 'proven' talents. Older talents, definitely, but that was about it.

RE: NOOOOOOOOOO

[untxi.livejournal.com]

ia. that's an easy criticism that people use nowadays bc of his chelsea & real madrid stints are far more well-known than the porto & inter ones, and people tend to conveniently forget those (not least bc the first 2 are 2 of the most hated football clubs in the world). not nearly enough credit is given to his incredibly achievements with the latter 2 teams.

RE: NOOOOOOOOOO

[pullhimdown.livejournal.com]

People like to go in on Mourinho a lot (which I absolutely get) but the way they choose to do it is just not very intellectually honest most of the time. Abramovich didn't offer him a job at Chelsea out of the kindness of his heart, and by the time Mourinho got that gig he'd already won a UEFA cup (on his first full season at Porto) and a Champions League (on his second season). That's pretty fucking impressive for any manager with any team, let alone one as young as he was, and with a 'small' club like Porto.

You'd have to be pretty damn biased not to agree he was the best manager in the game (but then again Del Bosque won Best Coach of the Year over him in 2012 so what do I know?), and the best manager in the game should get to manage the best players in the world if he wants to. It's as simple as that.

RE: NOOOOOOOOOO

[the4thjuliek.livejournal.com]

VdB hardly deserved that award though. Spain practically sleep-walked to the Euro final. And similarly last year, when Jogi won over Simeone because of the WC (which Germany won, not through his tactics but because of the quality of the players).

RE: NOOOOOOOOOO

[marsyke.livejournal.com]

His achievements with Porto and Inter were obviously extremely good. But maybe the Inter successes look even better now because of their terrible form after he left. Inter had won (more or less) 3 titles in a row before he took over.

RE: NOOOOOOOOOO

[untxi.livejournal.com]

the league title isn't at all the most significant part though, bc it happened immediately after calciopoli, which was a period of enormous turmoil in serie A. juventus had just been relegated & milan was punished by point deduction and never quite recovered, so inter was in a pretty comfortable position internally from then on. but winning a CL with that team & in during a period of profound crisis and decline of calcio while simultaneously winning everything at home, now that is impressive.

Re: RE: NOOOOOOOOOO

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

In the PL, Mou went proven from the jump. I am only speaking about what his presence hastened the death of academy talent over here for the sky six teams. Mou came and found John Terry and Frank Lampard in the team, he didn't shepherd them from Chelsea's academy (I think Lampard came from West Ham, so there is that). So yeah, he might have shephered talent at Inter and Porto from academy to first team, but not at Chelsea. Loftus Cheek is the closest academy grad he's had sniff at the first team, and he has only played for 45 mins this season in the PL. To the point where he's supposedly looking for a loan in January to go and get playing time and not too keen to resign with Chelsea if he's not going on loan and will just be benched.