Why Jose Mourinho Ruined His Legacy at Chelsea

Jose Mourinho returns to Chelsea this weekend. It’s not as a hero; this time, he's the enemy.

We've seen it before, when the Portuguese was manager of Inter Milan in the 2009/10 Champions League, but this is different. Mourinho is Manchester United boss now, and that fact alone damages what he once represented to Chelsea supporters.

Indeed, when he swans into Stamford Bridge, the timing couldn’t be any worse from a Chelsea perspective. Just as Antonio Conte is beginning to change the club and bring about a new era, Mourinho’s presence is a reminder of a sour past 12 months or so.

The landscape has shifted significantly in west London since Mourinho was sacked for a second time as Chelsea boss in December. The club remains fractured, and the process Conte has started in order to piece things back together has been showing signs of light. That all faces a big challenge on Sunday.

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By being a part of the conversation with United, Mourinho still has some semblance of power to affect things at Chelsea. If he can bring his side to west London and win, where will it leave the club? Will it mean the Blues hierarchy questioning the wisdom in allowing him to leave? Will it dilute the early impression Conte has made? Will the same problems from last season return in some form of extended PTSD for the players?

What's certain is that Mourinho’s ghost continues to lurk at Stamford Bridge. We see it in the squad Conte inherited from his this summer; we saw it in those defeats to Liverpool and Arsenal only last month.

Mourinho's influence is the wrong kind these days. In years past, when he took off on his tour of Europe with Inter and Real Madrid, Chelsea fans could accept potentially facing him like they did in 2010, as it was as friendly as a competitive match could get.

Besides, Chelsea were in a different place. The club was still trading on the benefits he had brought with him. Successive managers had been successful with his players, adjusting systems slightly to maintain success at the club. Now Conte's having to tip it up and start again.

When it comes to opponents, there’s no history with Inter or Madrid; defeats to them can be forgotten. But joining United doesn’t sit well. They’re a direct rival, and after all the talk of his romantic affair with Chelsea, we’re left questioning whether or not Mourinho was delivering his lines with sincerity.

It’s for that reason he will divide opinion on Sunday. There will be those Chelsea fans inside Stamford Bridge who will applaud him for what he helped deliver the club; then there will be those who feel angered by his choice of club now so soon after leaving the Blues.

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Of course, Mourinho would counter that by asking what fans expected him to do last summer? It was Chelsea who cut ties with him after all. Was he expected to spite himself when United came calling? It’s not as simple as that.

After all that occurred last term, Mourinho will be driven by a desire to set things straight with English football. Memories are short, and the last image we have of him is the forlorn figure that was slumped in the Chelsea dugout as his team rolled from one defeat to the next. It isn't of him lifting the 2014/15 league trophy.

What Chelsea fans are asking now is why he has to do it with United? Why does he have to do it in England? By remaining in the Premier League and chasing his own personal agenda, Mourinho is doing it at the west London club's expense. Any celebration he enjoys will invariably inflict pain on them.

If Mourinho is firing shots at the Chelsea bosses who sacked him, by default he's doing it to those who support the team. The club's losses are just as much theirs.

That alone is a significant dent to what he once represented. Football trades on the emotion of those who watch it; it’s a sport that manipulates the soul. Whole lives are dedicated to the belief in an ideal, and for it to work, it has to come with a sense of purity.

Chelsea fans believed in that ideal with Mourinho in the same way they do John Terry. The former Blues manager may have been an adopted son, but he was integral to what bonded and formed the Chelsea fabric.

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Mourinho was a symbol of Chelsea’s strength ever since he was appointed manager in 2004. The years between his two spells in charge always carried a sense of the inevitable, that one day he would come back. In many ways, it kept the club going; it kept the fans believing.

Being at United, that’s all gone. His image as some form of deity draped in blue has become tainted; now he looks abjectly human, and that makes him no different to any other opponent who shows up at Stamford Bridge this season or next.

Mourinho should never have become that to Chelsea.

Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes