PL Hangover: Jose's Wretched Chelsea Return Shows Depth of Man United Problems

When Chelsea sacked Jose Mourinho for a second time, such was his desire to leave the club's training ground incognito—amid media interest so frenzied Sky Sports had a helicopter hovering overhead—it was reported by the Times' Matt Hughes that he departed Cobham in the boot of an SUV.

It's a little odd to crave a situation usually only endured by kidnap victims, but one suspects at various points on Sunday afternoon Manchester United manager Mourinho may have hankered after the anonymity provided by the trunk of a car.

There was no such hiding place at Stamford Bridge; the only thing pitch black was Mourinho's mood. Even for elite tacticians, the touchline provides no sanctuary on days like these. The loneliness of the long distance runner has nothing on a football manager on the end of a 4-0 reverse to a former club.

Chelsea greeted the return of their most successful ever manager, the architect of three of their four Premier League titles, in a lukewarm manner no less tepid than a child's bath. An embrace with John Terry was friendlier than many expected, with further chats had with Willian, Oscar and Steve Holland. More telling was those that didn't stop for a quick catch-up.

Mourinho insists it didn't hurt, but it was the equivalent of Norm walking into Cheers and no one shouting "Norm!"

The Portuguese would rather have been a pariah than have to wait until his shambolic Manchester United side was 4-0 down before he heard his name sung by the home faithful—and even then one suspects they were as much taking the piss as demonstrating either respect or pity.

When contemplating a return to Chelsea as Manchester United manager, it's unlikely even in his most sombre moments would he ever have envisaged a homecoming so bleak, so devoid of spirit, so lacking in nous, so abject, so incoherent, so absent of any of the qualities that have made him a serial winner throughout his career. 

His worst-ever loss as a Premier League manager, at a ground where he once oversaw 77 consecutive league games without defeat before succumbing to Sunderland, was just about as bad as it gets.

Sunday's 4-0 loss represented United's heaviest defeat at Stamford Bridge in 17 years, while they are five points worse off this season than they were at the same stage last. His predecessor will have spent the entirety of the second half marching around his living room shouting "Louis van Gaal's army!" on a loop while waiting for "Ed Money" to flash up on his phone.

Had United's players demonstrated even a slither of the defiance on show in the away end—an expression of loyalty that compelled Chelsea's ever-demonstrative manager Antonio Conte to call for his own supporters to raise their game even at 4-0—there's an outside chance Pedro's 29-second opener could have proved surmountable.

They didn't, it got worse. Much worse.

Not a single United player had touched the ball by the time Zlatan Ibrahimovic was kicking-off again, with Chelsea in the lead courtesy of the fastest goal scored in the Premier league this season. When the ball was worked to Marcos Alonso on the halfway line, his long ball forward was as much a punt as it was precise. United's back four, demonstrating the type of "palpable discord" that got Mourinho the sack at Chelsea, made it look as though it had left the boot of Xavi. 

Rather than deal with it, Chris Smalling instead frantically waved his arms as though thrown into the sea with his legs tied together, before Daley Blind lived up to his name as he failed to spot Pedro peeling off him to nick possession. David De Gea, so commanding in keeping a clean sheet at Liverpool, careered off his line only to be left in no man's land as Pedro rounded him to slot into the empty goal.

Smalling hasn't shown a lapse in judgement like this since the time he pitched up at a fancy dress party as a suicide bomber.

Referee Martin Atkinson booked the Spaniard for an overexcited celebration. Not that he's boring, but he almost certainly puts his plugs in buckets of sand before going to bed.

Later in the first half, he would award the same punishment for a high David Luiz challenge on Marouane Fellaini that was so obviously a red card the Brazilian was practically stripped to his undies in anticipation of an early bath when Atkinson pulled out a yellow.

Mourinho had said pre-match he would not be "like a crazy kid if we score," per the Times' Paul Hirst and Ian Baker. Maybe that's part of the problem.

Conte had missed the memo. Watching the Italian put in more miles than any of United's midfielders over the course of 90 minutes, it was hard not to conclude in comparison Mourinho gives off an air of insouciance.

In a winning manager it can hold the appeal of watching James Dean sneer at anyone expecting respect without having earned it, but in a bad run it is often toxic to the point of being contagious. Here they were a rabble without a cause, to borrow Paul Doyle of the Guardian's headline. United have won only one of their last six league games and are five points off the UEFA Champions League places.

Rather than reach for the smelling salts as best laid plans went awry, Mourinho rolled his eyes and kept his hands in his pockets. There are few greater Mourinho-apologists than this writer, but on the day he wore the demeanour of a man on the way to a funeral—his own.

It seemed as though United's only plan was to keep a clean sheet. When that shipped sailed it was as if no one had a clue what to do next, other than to reach for the rum.

The back four played as if they were three sheets to the wind all game, while United's midfield looked as though they were trying to conceal a hangover in front of a worldwide audience of about a billion.

On his own up front, Ibrahimovic put in his worst performance in a United shirt yet. It they had been any more sluggish they would have left a trail.

Conceding a goal in the first minute, when coupled with individual errors, allows a manager to do a certain amount of finger pointing in the dressing room. But this was a United performance where a significant majority of Mourinho's players were wretched. Simple passes went askew time after time, while they were out-harried and out-tackled from the first minute to the last. 

It is inevitable questions will be asked of the manager.

There were distinct echoes of Chelsea in the final few months under Mourinho. This could have been any one of home defeats he oversaw to Crystal Palace, Liverpool, Southampton and Bournemouth last season. In his words, it's hard to see how United's players "betrayed" him any less on Sunday than Chelsea's did in the first half of last term.

Instead of using Fellaini and Ander Herrera as a duel defensive shield in front of his back four, as he did successfully against Liverpool, Mourinho employed the former further forward alongside Paul Pogba to press Nemanja Matic and N'Golo Kante. It was an unmitigated disaster.

Fellaini spent most of his afternoon as the closest United player to Ibrahimovic, a false 10 uniquely fitting to the moniker. Whenever he's in possession in an attacking sense, it's as though the clock starts to go backwards as he moves the ball so slowly, which is ironic given he's often about 20 yards ahead of where he should be.

Pogba at three times more expensive was 10 times worse than his compatriot Kante. Pogba the stallion to Kante's pony was second best in every respect. Everything the Chelsea man did had a purpose, whereas Pogba is sleepwalking through games. He doesn't know if he's a six, eight or 10. If he reads the ratings in Monday's papers, he'll probably think he's a three or a four.

On either flank, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard doubled up as auxiliary full-backs to give United a misshapen back six. Rather than push Chelsea's wing-backs Victor Moses and Alonso towards their own goal, they invited them on by playing so deep themselves. Rashford and Lingard marked Moses and Alonso, when it should have been the other way around. 

Neither of the more experienced Antonio Valencia (in fairness, one of United's better players) nor Blind seemingly had the in-game wherewithal to order younger team-mates off their toes so as to prevent Chelsea hemming them in. 

On the touchline, Mourinho wore the look of a man on a train straining to think of a crossword answer before momentarily closing his eyes and falling asleep on the shoulder of a fellow commuter.

It came as no surprise when Chelsea doubled their advantage 20 minutes after taking the lead. United failed to heed prior warnings at not marking from corners when Eden Hazard had gone close with a daisy cutter.

This time it was the Belgian's near-post corner that, after taking a deflection off Herrera, again exposed some wretched Smalling defending as he inexplicably turned his back to allow Cahill to smash in with a smart hooked finish he is quite the master at for a centre-half. The two stand-in skippers had very different afternoons.  

Ibrahimovic should probably have levelled at 1-0 when he headed over from Valencia's hanging cross to the back post having towered over Cesar Azpilicueta. The Swede's performance will have disappointed everyone at United, with perhaps the exception of Wayne Rooney. It remains a mystery why Mourinho hasn't tried him in a more withdrawn role, with either Rashford or Anthony Martial in front of him.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Michael Carrick get better with every game they spend on the bench or in the stands.

If Mourinho looks as though he's yet to work out either his best XI or formation, and is unlikely to do so without further testing the club's open chequebook policy in subsequent transfer windows, Conte is proving impressively adept at finding solutions for a Chelsea side that finished some five places and 16 points behind United last season.

Since switching to a back three (3-4-2-1) after an abject performance of their own, when Chelsea were routed 3-0 by Arsenal, Conte has overseen three victories in which nine goals have been scored and not a single one conceded. Mourinho needs a similar quick fix.

Both Conte and Mourinho inherited squads with inherent problems. Of the two of them, it is Conte getting more from his players despite spending considerably less.

Alonso and Moses have been revelations at wing-back, giving Chelsea a width that has crucially allowed Hazard to move inside and not worry so much at all about defending. All three have had issues with Mourinho, with Alonso sold by United's manager when the pair were together at Real Madrid. All three put in shifts that suggested as much. As did Luiz, Matic and Diego Costa. 

It was Hazard that capped another sumptuous display with Chelsea's third goal. Having drifted to the left, he played the ball to Kante, who in turn switched it to Matic. The Serb looks a totally different player under Conte than the shell of man he was when playing for Mourinho last term after an exemplary first campaign at Chelsea.

His first-time pass was one Hazard would have been proud of, and it was duly dispatched with a crisp low drive.

Hapless United substitute Juan Mata, as befitting of the narrative, had failed to track Hazard. Smalling made it easier even still by falling for his feint and then doing no more than stick out a half-hearted leg. Hazard failed to score in his final 27 appearances for Chelsea under Mourinho.

United's payers were no more use than shop mannequins by the time Chelsea scored a fourth. It was fitting, then, that Smalling was sold by a Kante dummy that belonged in a Macy's department store window display, after Pogba and Herrera were lackadaisical to the point of being offensive in the manner they allowed him to run off them.

Kante even had time to pull out a handkerchief to deal with an unexpected nosebleed upon finding himself in United's area before beating De Gea with an assured finish. 

As Gary Neville pointed out on Sky Sports, United have now spent the best of £180 million on central midfielders and don't have clue what the best partnership is. How Mourinho must wish he could have convinced Kante to spurn Chelsea and join him at Old Trafford when the two spoke of the possibility over the summer. 

Operating higher up the pitch than he was used to at Leicester City last season, Kante has embraced extra attacking responsibility as Matic plays the sitter in behind him. On Sunday, Kante created more chances than Hazard, according to WhoScored.com. That he also completed more passes than any other Chelsea player is now standard. It's hard to see a way back for Cesc Fabregas.

The enthusiasm with which his team-mates greeted his first goal for his new club said much about the popularity the most unassuming of characters holds in the dressing room. Maybe it said a little about their feelings towards Mourinho, too. 

When Mourinho snarled into the ear of Conte at full-time, it was, at least according to Sky Italia (via the Guardian's Dominic Fifield), to administer a stinging critique of his rival's attempt to whip up the crowd with the game already so dead it had a toe tag. "Do that at 1-0, not at 4-0," he is reported to have snapped at Conte in Italian.

Either that or he was pleading to be spared the indignity of having an apple stuffed into his mouth when his head is served on a silver platter at Roman Abramovich's 50th birthday celebrations on Monday.

If Schadenfreude is a meal best served cold, Chelsea dished it up on ice.