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Winning ugly, but still winning — opposition profile
Friday, 10th Apr 2015 23:20 by Clive Whittingham

Chelsea are on course for a Premier League and League Cup double — won pragmatically, rather than spectacularly, as is the Jose Mourinho way.

The acceptable, legally-safe, romanticised view of why Roman Abramovic decided to buy Chelsea and change the shape of English football forever is that he fell in love with the sport, and the Champions League in particular, after attending a match between Manchester United and Real Madrid at Old Trafford when the original, fat, Ronaldo was in his prime.

Struck by just how beautiful the sport could be at its finest, the Russian set his heart on building a money-no-object super team to conquer the world and Chelsea, almost completely bankrupt after overreaching under previous chairman Ken Bates, were the grateful recipient of the Russian rubles. He promptly signed Geremi for £7m from Middlesbrough, a strong hint that it wasn’t going to be as easy as all that.

More than a decade later and Chelsea have grown from midtable also-rans with occasional cup runs into a dominant force in English football. They’ve won three Premier League crowns, and the much-coveted Champions League. Ultimately, nothing succeeds quite like winning.

But Abramovic’s dream of recreating what he saw in Manchester that night remains unfulfilled, and returning Jose Mourinho to the club for a second stint as good as admits it never will be.

Mourinho is the ultimate pragmatist, and the ultimate winner. His outlook was never summed up better than the recent League Cup final against Spurs at Wembley, where Kurt Zouma — a centre back — was picked in a defensive midfield system. Spurs, who’d run five through the Blues in the league over Christmas, were completely stunted by the move. Harry Kane was isolated. There is more open space in a mouse’s ear canal than there was in the centre of the field that day. The spectacle, such as it was, was about as interesting for the neutral spectator as watching somebody complete a landscape painting in watercolours. But Chelsea won. Mourinho nearly always wins.


That wasn’t enough to save him from a messy departure from Chelsea last time, and they subsequently searched for what a management-speaking tosspot might term a more ‘holistic’ approach with Avram Grant, Carlo Ancelotti, Roberto Di Matteo, Rafael Benitez and others. But they’re back with him now - grinding their way to a league title again

The Portuguese coach went elsewhere — to Inter Milan, and Real Madrid. He won leagues and cups with both, using the same pragmatic, metronomic style of play on the pitch, and the same abrasive, us-against-the-world style off it.

Mourinho falls out with people routinely. He believes national football associations and referees conspire against his teams and says so openly. He baits opposing managers about their style and teams, winding them up and searching for a reaction. He’ll ostracise his own players if needs be — Iker Cassillas notably at Madrid. He’s searching for more favourable refereeing decisions, losses of concentration from opponents and reactions from players. But most of all he’s seeking to create an illusion for his inner core of favoured players that it’s him, and them, against the entire world. Every victory a triumph over adversity, every defeat a travesty of justice. When his billion pound team fails to win at home against a Burnley side that cost £5m to put together he’ll demand an appearance on Goals on Sunday the following day to air his conspiracy theories, and he’ll be granted it.


The newspapers will cover everything he says in immense detail. Who are these people who are interested in Jose Mourinho’s latest terrible fascinating “war of words” with Arsene Wenger? I pity them.

And his team will march along, winning almost everything, entertaining almost nobody, like a functional, well oiled, machine kicking our smart work shoes. This season they’re led from the front by Diego Costa — the ultimate Jose Mourinho player. Effective, aggressive, functional, always seeking a reaction from an opponent, unloveable unless he’s playing up front for your team. He’s a magnificent English-style centre forward, but he’s more likely to tread on a centre half’s face than trick his way past him with a shoulder drop or clever dummy.

Whatever Abromovic may have intended to begin with, he’s clearly accepted — rightly — that Mourinho is perfect for Chelsea. This is a club that baits opponents through its official website and half time announcements, a club with a string of recent race-related incidents on and off the field, a club that sends out official press releases about how many penalty kicks it has been rewarded in relation to opponents. It’s a classless organisation, now based entirely around winning through whatever means and shirt sales. Much like Diego Costa for Jose Mourinho, you couldn’t have picked a better fit than Jose Mourinho for Chelsea.

There seems to be an acceptance now that this is how Chelsea will be. Rather than chasing some pipe dream of becoming the great Dutch teams, playing total football, loved the world over, they’re going to simply settle into the routine of winning. They’ll annoy, aggravate and provoke. They’ll rarely thrill. But they’ll win. Constantly. All the time.

The Twitter @loftforwords

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THEO1 added 01:24 - Apr 11
When will the season of Mourinho bashing end. I am a Chelsea fan. I used to get annoyed to read all this bad write-ups about one of the best coaches this beautiful game has ever had. Then it occurs to me that For long time, People had been seeing only Man U, Liverpool and arsenal as the elite teams of BPL. The advent of Man City and Chelsea into this group has been seen as an affront. Hence all this terrible campaign. Chelsea can play exciting game like any other team. And they have only XI players in the field like other teams. The difference is that they play according to their strength against each team. What is wrong with that? All competitions played according to stipulated rules are about wining. Footbal is not only about flying up and down all the time. Defense is an important part of it too. And Chelsea does it better than most teams. I urge our pundits to discuss how the BPL can improve to catch up with rest of the Europe instead of wasting their time trying to run down some of their teams.
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ithastogetbetter added 04:08 - Apr 11
Regardless of your trolling sentiment, they remain dull, uninteresting anti-football types. Oh, and they are racist, xenophobis, bigoted c unt s. That is all.
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Toast_R added 09:50 - Apr 11
What's BPL?
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dixiedean added 10:56 - Apr 11
in order to confuse the Neanderthals, whenever they start singing their irritating Knuckle-scraper anthem, we should drown them out with " carefree wherever you may be , you got knocked out by PSG ". They won't know what to do when their favourite song is nullified. Probably revert to default mode of smashing things up and hurling racist abuse. THEO 1 , bless him, beautifully misses the point. People hate Mourinho not because he wins, but because he's an arrogant arse and represents all ( or most) of what they stand for. People don't hate Wenger or Van Gaal or Pellegrini or Rodgers. The fawning media who welcomed Mourinho back were nauseating with their " it's great to have Jose back, he's such a character " . What other club in the country would keep their #26 Captain Leader Racist as captain after what he did ? That says it all. Still no Champs Lge medal then John ? in case you hadn't noticed , I hate those c*nts more than I hate anything else ,even though I like to thing I'm normally quite rational !
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TacticalR added 11:27 - Apr 11
I thought that the Chelsea team we played against at Stamford Bridge earlier this season were pretty impressive. However, since then there have been some uninspiring Chelsea performances and on occasion Mourinho's mindgames have backfired.

I don't think Abramovic's dream of beautiful football has completely disappeared. Apparently he is still pining for Guardiola. Whether Guardiola would consider getting involved with Abramovic's hire and fire circus remains to be seen.
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qprxtc added 00:51 - Apr 12
Chelsea FC and their fans are (unts. Always were, always will be.
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GetMeRangers added 11:59 - Apr 12
Lovely to see the true colours of plastic fans where winning is everything. It evens blinds them of seeing the racist undertones of the club, let alone the disgusting behaviour of several of the players on 9/11. Like flies attracted to sh1t, xenophobes, racists and full kit w&nkers have a captain, leader, racist to rally behind and a club that, in many ways, has not moved on from the darker days of football
Win or lose, every Rs fans, and I would hazard a guess those of most other clubs, go to football to be entertained.
West London will always be Rsssss
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