Premier League Hangover: Is the Clock Ticking for Jose Mourinho at Chelsea?

Blue is the colour. Black is the mood. When Chelsea lost to Southampton back in October, it elicited a classic Jose Mourinho response. Bristling with brio and bathing in bathos, for seven-and-a-half uninterrupted minutes a monologue to camera seemingly without filter spilled from the loosest of lips. His mood after Saturday’s defeat to Bournemouth could not have been more marked.

Sure, there was the regurgitation of a time-old rhetoric, as blame shifted from the officials to his players without missing a beat, but this was a performance as weary as the 90 minutes he had just witnessed. Mourinho must go to bed each evening praying he’ll wake up in clammy sheets on August 8. A reverse Groundhog Day, if you will.

A heavyweight punched into a corner, post-match Mourinho bore the haunted look of a cop who had just handed in his badge and gun. Melancholic and jaded, more lost than bitter. Spin was kept to a minimum as luck was lamented. Glenn Murray’s winner he adjudged to have been offside, and a nick off the arm of Simon Francis was deemed worthy of a penalty, per the Evening Standard. Mr. Straw meet Mr. Clutch.

It didn’t seem lost on Mourinho though that Premier League newcomers Bournemouth had not won a game for two-and-a-half months prior to their trip to Stamford Bridge. They hadn’t previously kept a clean sheet either.

The last time Chelsea had lost at home to a newly promoted club was back in 2001, when Shaun Bartlett scored in Charlton’s 1-0 win. Without wishing to dip a toe into FA Cup giant-killer whimsy, Chelsea’s starting XI cost £213 million to assemble. You’d get change out of £2 million for Bournemouth’s.

A win at Chelsea used to see victors put on an open-top bus parade. This term anything more than a fish-and-chip supper on the coach home would be deemed ostentatious. Even for a club like Bournemouth, with a Russian oligarch of their own.

In Mourinho’s first 99 Premier League games at home, he lost just once. Earlier this season, his 100th league match at Stamford Bridge proved prescient. The Chelsea boss raised his bat to his adoring public, and Crystal Palace left through the back door with a win. More teams have won at Chelsea in the league this season than lost.

Roman Abramovich was in attendance for an eighth league defeat of the campaign but on this occasion wasn’t challenged by his manager. With Chelsea now 17 points shy of Leicester City at the Premier League summit, 14 points off the Champions League places, but just two clear of the relegation zone, the Portuguese coach wisely kept counsel on whether the Special One was above the threat of the sack. Referring to oneself in the third person remains the reserve of champions.

The message coming out of west London seems mixed. The next seven days, if he gets that far, will surely determine his fate.

On Wednesday night, Chelsea must avoid defeat to Porto in the Champions League to fend off the threat of dropping into the Europa League. Thursday night football used to be something to sneer at. After Saturday, it was conceded it was the best Chelsea could hope for. Next up in the league is a trip to Leicester to face old sparring partner Claudio Ranieri on Monday night.

“Before this game, I was still thinking we could finish top four,” Mourinho conceded, per the Observer.

“Everyone up there is losing points. Only Leicester are consistent in victories; they keep winning and winning. So before the game it was realistic to think our quality would take us out of this position, but maybe now we have to think about top six.”

If Mourinho’s former club Porto are successfully negotiated to ensure progression to the knockout stages, it is thought he could win a stay of execution. The Champions League remains the Holy Grail for Abramovich, and it is Chelsea’s relative competence in Europe this season that is a major factor why history has not repeated itself yet.

When Mourinho left Chelsea in 2007, the club were in fifth place, two points off top spot. This is an annus horribilis that seriously threatens to blot one of Europe’s finest managerial CVs. We’ll not mention “third-season syndrome” for fear of being sent unsolicited gifts in the post.

Prior to Saturday, successive clean sheets against Norwich City, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Tottenham Hotspur proved to be more smoke and mirrors than a night out with David Copperfield. Saturday was a fairer microcosm of the season to date than any of the aforementioned.

That’s not to take anything away from a Bournemouth display that Eddie Howe anointed as the club’s best ever in the league, per BBC Sport. The Cherries were full value for a victory that could kick-start their campaign, but at the same time, there’s no getting away from the fact there’s nothing false about Chelsea’s position at present. They are where their performances merit.

Mourinho could perhaps draw consolation from the fact Chelsea’s problems can be surmised by a single word, were that word not everything. Last season, Chelsea were a lean machine of a side that married blue-collar workers with artists happy to get out of bed before 3 p.m., especially on a Saturday. It was classic Mourinho.

Like a modernist building, form followed function. Anything decorative was deemed superfluous. Eden Hazard and Co. learnt quickly that looking pretty isn’t enough to earn your supper with Mourinho.

This season, there’s more fat on Chelsea than a side of pork belly. No side has conceded more goals in the last 15 minutes this term, and given how leggy they look, is it any real surprise? Much has been made of Diego Costa’s dwindling prowess and the fact the only strike rate he can boast any really success at is clobbering opposition centre-halves.

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Yet while his paltry three goals is indeed a pathetic return, upgrading on the brooding one in January will not transform Chelsea’s fortunes entirely. Far from it. It could, though, improve a state of affairs that has seen Bournemouth, shorn of twin attacking figureheads Callum Wilson and Max Gradel to serious injury, outscore the champions this season.

All over the pitch there are problems. The fit-again Thibaut Courtois was at least partially at fault for Murray’s late winner when he failed to effectively deal with a Bournemouth corner, but the Belgian is not a concern. In the absence of John Terry, without wishing to wave a banner best forgot, Chelsea badly lack a leader. It’s strange that a character of such spiky intensity as Mourinho has surrounded himself with so few like-minded players. Maybe that’s the way he likes it.

Branislav Ivanovic can barely break into a trot these days and were it not for a bond that seemingly borders on brotherly with his manager would surely by now have had his monumental thighs made into a tin of glue. Baba Rahman occupied the opposite flank at the weekend, and while in fairness it is early days in his Chelsea career, it’s not hard to think of another 17.6 million better ways to spend the cash equivalent paid for him. Gary Cahill and Kurt Zouma are a work in progress as a partnership but some way shy of being a title-winning pair.

Chelsea are even worse in midfield, with Willian the only player capable of injecting any genuine pace and purpose.

Cesc Fabregas has gone from being the league’s best deep-lying playmaker to playing in a manner so lackadaisical it’s a wonder he hasn’t benched his boots in favour of flip flops. Alongside him, Nemanja Matic wears the pained expression of a man permanently worried about his team-mate’s positional sense defensively. As well he might. Again at the weekend Bournemouth cut through a static middle line all too easily.

Last year’s Footballer of the Year has started to sporadically float like a butterfly again, but given it’s 25 games and counting without a goal for Hazard, it’s fair to say he stings like one too these days. There are worse things in the world to be compared to than Trevor Brooking. Oscar and Pedro are polite and peripheral, like two bookends.

In the Guardian at the weekend, Michael Cox cited “fatigue and uncertainty over Joes Mourinho’s methodology” as factors behind Chelsea sudden “malaise.” Both are fair conclusions to draw, but in blunter terms, this Chelsea side as it stands is shot. There was precious little dissension from the club’s supporters at full-time on Saturday, but it’s not those in the stands that Mourinho needs to convince.

Those that frequent the boardroom said they were right behind him in October. As Mourinho knows only too well, though, that’s also the ideal position in which to stab someone in the back.

Van still the Man for United

Jon Super/Associated Press/Associated Press

With this season appearing to be Pep Guardiola’s last at Bayern Munich, it’s no surprise that this week has seen some of Europe’s biggest clubs flutter their eyelashes in the direction of Bavaria.

Both Manchester clubs had been thought to be keeping tabs on the situation, but according to many of England’s leading journalists, United briefed them this week to express how they were unequivocal in their backing of Louis van Gaal.

On Sunday, in the Guardian, Daniel Taylor wrote a column outlining the absolute conviction United’s money men have that the Dutchman has put the club back on the right track after a brief derailment under David Moyes’ disastrous tenure.

It might not be pretty, but boardrooms like steady ships, and United’s have been impressed with his patch-up job. At the very least, they want him to stay until his contract expires in the summer of 2017.

It seems United’s board have taken to heart the words of American writer Kurt Vonnegut: “Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”

It is a faith not universally shared at Old Trafford. Van Gaal insisted his side were unlucky rather than boring in the aftermath of Saturday’s draw with West Ham United. A fifth goalless draw in nine matches hardly gives Van Gaal proof in the affirmative. Neither is the fact United have managed seven goals in their last 10 games.

It’s true that United had 21 attempts on goal, but that 11 were from outside the area tells its own story. United’s obsession with possession invariably allows the opposition to set themselves behind the ball and force shots from range. United create a lot of “chances,” but the quality of these “chances” is hard to quantify.

No Premier League club has partaken in more goalless draws than United’s four to date this season, while Van Gaal’s side has now had fewer shots on target than Swansea City, and one more than Sunderland. Saturday’s third 0-0 stalemate at home in the league this season is two more than under David Moyes two seasons ago.

After another blank, Anthony Martial’s worrying profligacy means he has now scored just once in his last 13 matches. Frustration with the current crop is exacerbated further by the fact Javier Hernandez, sold by Van Gaal in the summer for £7.3 million, has scored 11 goals for Bayern Leverkusen since October 20. In the same period, United have managed just seven between them.

Manchester United supporters used to look at rival fans complaining of goalless draws the way the Fonz would berate Richie Cunningham when listening to his hapless friend recount another tale of unrequited love. The concept being discussed was familiar yet so far from personal experience it was as if conversing with a fellow mammal but just not one of the same species.

Going 116 games without one, as they did under Sir Alex Ferguson at the end of the Scot’s tenure, will do that.

Only Lal Hilditch, who managed the club between 1925 and 1927, has had a higher percent of 0-0 draws as Manchester United manager than Van Gaal, according to the Times. Hilditch tips the scales at 14.3 per cent to Van Gaal’s 13.2 per cent.

Van Gaal takes his side to Wolfsburg on Tuesday evening in the knowledge another blank would not just end United’s involvement in this season’s Champions League but further widen the chasm between his philosophies and those of the club’s supporters.

As relayed by the Times, Van Gaal said:

"

We are not scoring out of many chances and we have to score at Wolfsburg.

We don’t want to be eliminated but in sport it’s always possible. You can’t win every year or every game.

But I have great confidence that we shall score at Wolfsburg.

"

United fans disenfranchised with a style of play that is alien to the club’s rich attacking traditions may encourage the Glazers to consider another Vonnegut quote: “Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”

You have to hand it to Jurgen Klopp. The man can work a room...

Scott Heppell/Associated Press/Associated Press

Via the Daily Mail, on what went wrong in Liverpool’s defeat at Newcastle: “Nearly everything, I would say. The start, the middle and the end. I don’t know.”

On Alberto Moreno’s wrongly disallowed goal: “We got this goal—it was something like a Christmas present or whatever. We made our goal, but because we weren’t good enough today, the linesman thought, ‘Don’t make world-class goals if you play this s--t.’”

Meanwhile, over in Manchester, it seems as though Sir Alex Ferguson is getting a wee bit anxious about being knocked off his perch, per the Telegraph:

"

I’m worried about him [Klopp] because the one thing United don’t want is Liverpool to get above us.

He’s a fantastic personality, with those big white teeth always showing.

Even at Newcastle when they lost the second goal he goes over to Steve McClaren to congratulate him. That’s class, that. And the work he did at Dortmund.

"

Please never let this stop...

Absolutely no way this lad would score goals at Chelsea

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