Humiliation of Manchester United Has Cured Chelsea's Jose Mourinho Hangover

STAMFORD BRIDGE, London — Chelsea didn't just defeat Manchester United on Sunday, they humiliated them. It was a spectacular loss for Jose Mourinho's side, dishing up the Stamford Bridge homecoming he was never expecting.

This wasn't a love affair, it was a massacre.

Mourinho wasn't supposed to watch his team being thrashed 4-0. He was supposed to be turning up in west London to show the Blues what they were missing—we were expecting a parade. Now Manchester United manager, the Portuguese was supposed to remind those in SW6 what it was that had so endeared him to them.

As former Blues striker Eidur Gudjohnsen would later joke on Twitter, Mourinho still knows how to get the best out of this Chelsea team, only these days it's coming at his expense.

The Blues were formidable on Sunday as they blasted United back up the M6. In so doing, manager Antonio Conte has banished the demons Mourinho's ghost had left behind at Stamford Bridge. The baggage is gone; a Mourinho hangover has been cured.

For the past decade, with or without Mourinho, it's been his influence that has dominated the conversation for Chelsea. When he was sacked for the first time in 2007, Blues supporters pined for his return; when he eventually came back in 2013—before being sacked last December—it created the infamous "palpable discord" that carried over from the dressing room to the terraces.

Not anymore. Stamford Bridge fans have a new icon to get behind—Conte is their leader now. And after such a convincing victory, this feels like a significant moment in the manager's Chelsea career.

Sure, it's still early days for the Italian, but in defeating Mourinho in the manner he did, Conte has given Chelsea confidence they can exist without the Special One at the wheel.

GLYN KIRK/Getty Images

That has long been an issue for the club. It was always Mourinho's formula that was driving them on; he put that in place in 2004 and it served them right through to that victory in Munich in the Champions League under the guidance of Roberto Di Matteo.

As the Chelsea team that lifted that trophy was gradually dismantled, Mourinho was brought back in the hope he could do it all again. He didn't, and when he left the club 10 months ago, we weren't sure where the Blues were headed. They lacked any direction or identity.

Snatching Conte from the Italy national team is looking more and more like the coup of the decade. With no Champions League football and a team that had finished mid-table in the previous season, Chelsea had no right to be employing a manager of such renown.

Whoever negotiated Conte's passage to the Blues should be walking the halls of Stamford Bridge with a significant glow.

The new Chelsea showed its face on Sunday. The same bullish approach from Mourinho's heyday was there, yet there was more zip about the team. They had the energy and desire to assert themselves.

Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

As Conte noted in his press conference, the team went out and showed the "fans and the opponent how much they wanted to win this game." That much was made clear in the opening 30 seconds when Pedro put them in front.

We haven't witnessed that sort of spirit for a long while. That it would come against Mourinho—the man who speaks in such terms himself—made the performance feel more consequential.

"Today was very important because this type of game, against a team like Manchester United, increases our confidence about our work," said Conte.

"I repeat, we are working very hard. I see my players every day with the right commitment and the right work rate. They deserve this type of performance; this type of win.

"When you work very hard, it's important to win. When you win, you trust in the work."

That factor is vital, not only for the Chelsea players but for the supporters and those who wield the power at the club. Whereas Mourinho couldn't give them the answers they wanted moving forward, Conte is showing that he can.

For all the hard work on the training pitch, the results are beginning to bear fruit. As a club, collectively, Chelsea are beginning to move on. They're beginning to show a belief in a different method and in a different face.

That's where Mourinho has been such a powerful figurehead in the past. Chelsea fans always wanted him back at the club as they never felt stronger than with him in the dugout. Some famous faces came and went in the intervening years, but it was always with him that the club had its confidence.

Chelsea have been successful on the back of that, but they've also been crippled by it. The burden of Mourinho hasn't damaged managers only; it's affected the way the club has been run. When they sacked him in 2007, Chelsea spent the next six years trying to find the next Mourinho. When they couldn't, they reappointed him.

Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

Those days are over now. The chapter has been closed and the love affair is over. So much so that we hardly heard Mourinho's name inside Stamford Bridge on Sunday. In fact, it was only when Chelsea were running away with the game at 4-0 that Blues supporters started singing his name.

Given the circumstances, that felt more ironic than anything else. It was being chanted in the same tone as Gudjohnsen's tweet.

The supporters were afforded that luxury because of what Conte had delivered. They had forgotten about Mourinho and giving him his rapturous applause because of what was being played out in front of them; rather than celebrating the past, they were able to applaud the present.

The Mourinho hex has been lifted. This isn't his club or his team anymore. Chelsea belongs to Conte now.

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