Premier League Hangover: Van Gaal on Brink as Mourinho Haunts Chelsea and United

The discord is palpable from west London to Manchester. Even in absence, Jose Mourinho is the story. On a peculiar Saturday in the most peculiar of seasons, a shift in the market saw a stock price that plummeted on Thursday afternoon enjoy the healthiest of spikes.

Chelsea won; Mourinho won. Manchester United lost; Mourinho won.

Stamford Bridge was more a shrine than a football stadium for the visit of Sunderland. Chelsea’s enraged brethren spat forth fury as only they can. It wasn’t quite the Poll Tax Riots that tipped the capital upside down in 1990, but nothing says disenchantment stronger than a hastily crafted, hand-drawn banner. The Blue Peter props department is missing its Pritt Stick.

Fight the power.

It was like something out of a Nordic noir crime series. Detectives investigating a missing manager discover a janitor’s secret storeroom that’s floor-to-ceiling filled with handmade declarations of love and trinkets of devotion. Mourinho’s recently shorn hair was found encased in lockets to be handed out at the turnstiles.

Here was the cult of personality towering over the collective with a nod, a wink and a two-fingered salute to those in the gods. King Roman Abramovich, flanked by trusted advisers Guus Hiddink and Didier Drogba, wore a beige jumper and beiger slacks. It was almost as if he thought his sartorial ordinariness could somehow set the tone for the day.

There’s nothing to see here, folks; it's just an ordinary afternoon in the office like any other. It would prove to be anything but.

Chelsea’s supporters greeted each of their side’s three goals against Sunderland with chants for Mourinho. Perhaps this is the first time goals have ever been treated as an affront. The football was sparkling; the mood mutinous. The disengagement between Chelsea and their supporters would appear to be just as deep as Mourinho’s was with his players.

"Stand up for the Special One" was a familiar refrain. Abramovich stayed seated all afternoon.

Matt Dunham/Associated Press/Associated Press/Associated Press

On 13 minutes, the chant turned to "Where were you when we were s--t?" when Pedro added to Branislav Ivanovic's early opener. A 3-1 victory that saw Chelsea score as many goals as they had in the previous six league games was greeted with the fractious ire usually reserved for owners caught with their hand in the till. Abramovich may be Chelsea’s king, yet when taking on the people’s prince, there was only ever going to be one winner.

Mourinho’s management style may have divided a dressing room, but his force of personality has always been a unifying factor for the supporters.

The names of Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa were booed when they were read out and joined by that of Eden Hazard’s on one banner, which castigated the trio as rats. Pied Piper Mourinho had a sell-out crowd marching to his tune all afternoon.

When Costa was substituted 14 minutes from time, his drawn-out walk was accompanied by a musical interlude hailing the man he couldn’t hit with a bib from five yards. If looks could kill, the Metropolitan Police Service would in all likelihood still be trying to wrestle Chelsea’s No. 19 to the turf.

"

Banner at Chelsea today. "The Three Rats" pic.twitter.com/nISa2QFjue

— Football Funnys (@FootballFunnys) December 19, 2015"

Those in the stands may not have enjoyed it, but to watch Chelsea was to almost literally be able to see a weight lifted from the players’ shoulders. Fabregas completed 53 of his 56 first-half passes. Up until Saturday, it was disputable whether he’d be able to pass a stool without first hitting the toilet seat.

Oscar, a somewhat ostracized figure under Mourinho this season, sparkled with the joy of a kid playing on Copacabana beach. Sunderland’s defenders were typically obliging in that they happily took on the role of the cumbersome father indulging his son, being repeatedly waltzed past after sticking out an arbitrary leg.

Oppression lifted, the Brazilian was mesmeric in orchestrating the game entirely at his own pace. Just as Miles Davis used to do, he played the silences perfectly and hit the big notes on cue.

Having been around the block more times than an ice cream van in a holiday resort, Hiddink will be acutely aware that for all the talk of his taking on a poisoned chalice, this is the job that will keep on giving. He inherits a title-winning side that realistically can, and will, only get better.

His previous success on an interim basis, when he won the FA Cup after clearing up Luiz Felipe Scolari’s mess in 2009, affords him the goodwill of Chelsea’s fans and unequivocal faith in the boardroom. When you add into the mix he’s 69 and almost certainly going to be replaced at the end of the season by a younger heavyweight, it’s a 24-carat gold win-win situation for the Dutchman.

Manchester Rains on Van Gaal's Parade of Perpetual Mediocrity

Jon Super/Associated Press

Over in Manchester, Louis van Gaal is on the precipice.

A third successive defeat for Manchester United that extended their winless run to six matches saw the Dutchman concede post-match that he feared for his job. Saturday’s loss to Norwich City was the second time in a week his team had been floored by a promoted side, following on from Bournemouth.

After managing just two shots on target at home against a side that last won an away match in August and hadn’t claimed maximum spoils at Old Trafford since 1989, United were booed off as goals from Cameron Jerome and Alex Tettey rendered Anthony Martial’s consolation strike precisely that. And as consolations go, it’s like losing your winning lottery ticket and taking solace in the fact next week’s draw will be a rollover as a consequence.

Post-match, the bullishness that can teeter on boorishness when the mood takes him was replaced with a rare display of self-doubt. Trademark joie de vivre was dulled to the point of being obsolete. It was almost endearing.

Having spent a tortuous afternoon being reminded of his own follies while the virtues of his one-time apprentice were simultaneously regaled at intervals by both sets of supporters, he cut the figure of older gentleman no longer assured of his place in the world.

"I am—or maybe I was—a good manager," is the type of line usually afforded a searing string accompaniment. We are in Oscar Season after all.

He continued, via the Independent's Jack de Menezes, to back himself, albeit with the heavy caveat that confidence in his dressing room is plummeting:

"

The fans are expecting that we win and we expect the same. We have never lost this season at home and we are in a bad period and you can see what [a lack of] confidence is doing to my players. We have to stick together now and come out of this bad period, but you have seen this is not so easy.

Of course I am worried about [Mourinho’s sacking] because belief in a manager is very important. And when you lose as a manager that confidence decreases.

That is happening now, and I cannot close my eyes to that. I always say something to the players. Today it was very hard to say something, but I said something that will stay with the players. I don’t think a change of management shall bring direct success.

"

In her Guardian column, a day prior to the "Individual One" (© Chelsea's technical director, Michael Emenalo) being toppled off a clifftop of his own, Marina Hyde eloquently warned "poets of punditry" against "drafting think pieces or soliloquies that suggest Mourinho’s second spell at Stamford Bridge was akin to a Shakespearean tragedy."

Presumably, Van Gaal is fair game, though, given there is almost certainly something rotten in the state of Manchester. 

Winning ugly is one thing—losing ugly another thing altogether. Put in its simplest terms, football boards and moneymen judge managers on results, not aesthetics. In the same way the director general of the BBC would probably rather eat his own television set than watch an episode of Mrs Brown's Boys, he's quite happy to commission it as it gets high figures and looks impressive on a line graph. 

Now, Manchester United are out of the top four, and on Saturday's evidence—in what was another performance bereft of anything that even bordered on being true to the club's pioneering traditions and spirit—they are unlikely to get back on the winning trail anytime soon. Executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward's pie charts are starting to look less appetising than a cook-in-the-can Fray Bentos. 

Defeat to Norwich means Van Gaal's win rate of 51 per cent is now worse than David Moyes' (53 per cent). His goals-per-game ratio is inferior too (1.55 vs. 1.69). As far as statistical evidence administering a low blow, this is heading straight for Van Gaal's infamous nether regions. Add in the returns of Wayne Rooney, Phil Jones and Chris Smalling from injury, and the thinnest of threads that divides Van Gaal's position from being untenable is at absolute breaking point. 

On Saturday morning, Mourinho’s management team, CAA, issued a statement (h/t the Independent's De Menezes) to say its client was in no way done for the season and was very much looking forward to gainful employment. CAA added he would not attend any high-profile matches to avoid stoking speculation over his future.

"

He will not be taking a sabbatical, he isn't tired, he doesn't need it, he is very positive, and is already looking forward.

Because of his love of football, you will see Jose at football grounds working and supporting friends. He will not be attending any high-profile games because he wants to discourage any speculation about his future.

Jose will remain living in London and hopes he and his family will be given the opportunity to do this privately.

"

Sounds sensible enough. Mourinho recoiled from the world by attending Brighton and Hove Albion vs. Middlesbrough, the first live televised game broadcast in the UK since his dismissal. As far as avoiding publicity goes, it’s not exactly Greta Garbo. One suspects Harper Lee and J.D. Salinger won't have any discreet lunches gatecrashed anytime soon by an at-a-loose-end Mourinho.

Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images

In terms of timings, it doesn’t seem that dissimilar to the come-and-get-me-plea leaked by Jurgen Klopp in the week leading up to the Merseyside derby draw in October and Brendan Rodgers’ consequent sacking. It won’t be lost on a long-in-the-tooth Van Gaal, either.

Chelsea fans will probably make me a pointed, laminated sign for even suggesting it, but it's hardly a secret Mourinho hankered after Sir Alex Ferguson's old desk with more longing than Sandy held for Danny way before he agreed a second stint at Stamford Bridge. He couldn't have cosied up to the Scot with any more sycophancy during their time in opposition dugouts had he offered to play with 10 men whenever any of his sides lined up against United. 

Over the weekend, Mourinho’s name was sung by three sets of supporters: Chelsea’s lovingly, Manchester United’s longingly and Norwich’s mockingly.

Heading into Christmas week in the driving Manchester rain, Van Gaal increasingly wears the haunted and crumpled look of James Stewart’s character George Bailey in festive favourite It’s a Wonderful Life.

Had Frank Capra cast Mourinho as Bailey’s guardian angel, Clarence Odbody, one suspects the film would have been decidedly more macabre—not to mention significantly shorter. For those who haven’t seen it, Odbody saves Bailey from jumping off a bridge in a blizzard by showing him all the lives he has touched and how it would have all been very different had he not been born.

"Hey, Louis: Don’t jump. First, let me show you what life would have been like at United without you," calls out Jose Odbody.

Scene cuts to Cristiano Ronaldo doing a jig with Mourinho on the Old Trafford turf while holding the Premier League trophy aloft in front of an adoring Stretford End.

Van Gaal jumps. Credits roll.

 
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