Premier League Hangover: Class Act Conte Casts Mourinho in Unfavourable Light

While the American writer Mark Twain's view that "comparison is the death of joy" seems perfectly equitable, when the subjects of potential scrutiny are Chelsea and Manchester United, and by extension of them Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho, to ignore parallels so delicious would be like leaving a steak in front of a dog and hoping good manners would prevent it from being devoured.

Conte's enthusiasm is so infectious in days of yore he'd have been forced to wear a bell. On Saturday as Chelsea rubber-stamped their title credentials with a performance against Everton jaw-droppingly good not just in the context of this season, but any in Premier League history, Conte marked the fifth goal in the same way as he did the first.

In the directors' box, Roman Abramovich wore a grin wider than one of his yachts. Conte's team was playing the type of football he has always craved for Chelsea. This was ballet in blue, champagne football of the Dom Perignon variety.

Conte less plays up to the crowd as becomes part of it. They responded in kind by singing his name with vigour for the first time. It's hard to imagine being a player and not wanting to do well for him.

When David Luiz starts to look like a proper defender, it is time to take a coach and his team seriously.

Forget the Premier League title, the Most Improved Player of the Year gong at Chelsea could be football's toughest trophy to win this season.

In comparison, Mourinho makes Paul Scholes look as though he'd make a good kids' TV presenter. Manchester's Chuckle Brothers could make Barry and Paul turn to drink if they ever got on to the topic of United's woes.

Even with the job he always craved, a board that have backed him unequivocally in the transfer market, a set of supporters willing to give him time, a salary only Ed Woodward could have agreed to sign off and 24-hour access to the finest trouser press in the whole of Manchester, it's hard to look at Mourinho and not think he imbues the Woody Allen line: "My one regret in life is that I am not someone else."

To give Twain his due, to focus on Manchester United's deficiencies after a weekend in which they won 3-1 at Swansea City, in no small part due to improved performances from Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney in a more cohesive 4-1-4-1 formation, would be a largely joyless exercise. No different perhaps to taking to task a Slimmer of the Week for a doughnut they ate a fortnight ago, or in United's case a few days ago in Fenerbahce.

Which is why Mourinho's comments in his post-match press conference, via the Guardian, when he testily questioned the willingness of some of his squad to play through the pain barrier were so bizarre:

"

Smalling doesn't feel that he can play 100% with his pain, Luke Shaw told me this morning that he was not in the condition to play, so we had to build a defensive line.

There is a difference between the brave, who want to be there at any cost, and the ones for whom a little pain can make a difference.

If I were to speak with the many great football people of this team, they will say many times they played without being 100%. For the team you have to do anything, that is my way of seeing [things].

"

It was all a little awkward, odd even, a best man's speech so close to the bone that the whole wedding party winced rather than just the groom. Grandmothers have been known to faint at less. As has Shaw presumably. 

There has been so much cod-psychology applied to Mourinho over the past few weeks that Manchester fishmongers have complained of insufficient stock. However, given he issued a public lambast of his players in defeat to Fenerbahce, describing his team as treating the Europa League game as a "summer friendly," it does seem unnecessarily confrontational to follow it with another in victory. 

It's as though he's suffering third-season syndrome after just three months in his new job.

There was no need for Mourinho and Manchester United to dominate Monday's back pages, yet the Times, and no doubt countless others, have gone with "Mourinho in attack on his weak players" as their lead.

Shock-and-awe tactics only work if used sparingly; Mourinho walks into most press conferences these days carrying a cannon.

Cue Twain: "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

It's as though he has forgotten falling out with players was what got him the sack at Chelsea last season.

The Premier League's new breed—Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, Mauricio Pochettino and Conte—are each unique in their methodologies, yet what they share is closeness to their players. They see themselves as educators, tirelessly working to ensure potential is fulfilled in all they coach. 

Mourinho has always managed with an iron fist; it's just over the past couple of seasons it's as though he has forgotten to slip on a velvet glove.

Murmurs United's players have been surprised with how distant Mourinho has been have yet to be substantiated with anything concrete, but there's a pervading sense he no longer covets nor encourages the type of father-son dynamic he once fostered with the likes of Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba during his first spell at Chelsea.

Inter Milan's players would have run through the San Siro's walls for him too, Real Madrid's less so. Last season Chelsea's players wouldn't have run through a wet paper bag for him if Claudia Schiffer was on the other side serving cream teas in a bikini.  

Mourinho is not the main story here, though; it should be Conte and his players heralded after leaving their Everton counterparts looking to a man as though they had been hit by a bullet train. Tom Cleverley in a refreshingly matter-of-fact admission per the Times, conceded: "You feel inferior as a professional."

Chelsea's last three Premier League home games have been 3-0, 4-0 and 5-0 wins. Pochettino may administer crash helmets to his Tottenham side for their trip across the capital on Nov. 26.

Yet somehow to pull Mourinho out of the discussion would do ill-service to the remarkable job Conte is doing. Like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, it's impossible to separate Chelsea and Mourinho, however many times they divorce.

Forget Guus Hiddink's interim role at Chelsea in a caretaker capacity last season when he was charged—somewhat fittingly—with sweeping up Mourinho's mess.

Conte has inherited Mourinho's team; a team that went from Premier League champions to 31 points off the pace in the space of a season. Just 13 points separated them from relegated Newcastle United last term.

At this stage last season, Chelsea were nursing a defeat at Stoke City that had effectively ended their title defence before it had begun. It marked a seventh defeat of the season, four more than in the whole of the previous campaign. At least Mourinho didn't have to witness it. He was serving a stadium ban at the time. On Sunday, he was sat in the stands at Swansea for similar offences.

Of Chelsea's starting XI on Saturday, nine had played under Mourinho. N'Golo Kante and Marcos Alonso were the anomalies, though the latter was sold by the Portuguese when the pair were together at Real Madrid. Alonso would probably add his name to a list of Mourinho grudge bearers also likely to house David Luiz (sold), Nemanja Matic (humiliated), Pedro (misused), Victor Moses (not used), Eden Hazard (Rat I) and Diego Costa (Rat II).

When Conte pitched up at Stamford Bridge over the summer later than he would have liked due to commitments with the Italian national side at Euro 2016, he did so amid talk that both Hazard and Costa wanted out. Chelsea's conscientious objectors had refused to go to war for Mourinho, though they weren't always averse to playing as though they were at war with him.

Costa's goal against Everton took him to nine for the season and cemented his place as the Premier League's top goalscorer. A crisp first-time finish from a flicked-on corner, reminiscent of his goal against Leicester City, was just desserts for an immaculate overall performance.

It brought a tear to the eye to those of us old enough to remember a time when playing as a false nine would lead only to a centre-forward's substitution. The way he contemptuously brushed Phil Jagielka aside and then flummoxed him with footwork so good it made the ball blush in the buildup to Chelsea's final goal was one of the most viscerally thrilling moments of the season so far.

It's worth noting too Costa's reaction to Seamus Coleman's wild early challenge on him, drawing blood to his right ankle. Last season Costa would probably have bundled the Irishman into the boot of his car and used him as a Bonfire Guy. He's more focused under Conte, seemingly leaner both physically and mentally, as he let the incident go without any undue theatrics. He punished Everton in so many other more positive ways all evening. 

Hazard was involved in all of Chelsea's five goals, two of which he bagged himself. The second was a thing of real beauty to take his tally for the campaign to seven in 11 games—his best-ever total for the club since joining in 2012.

"I am trying to play like when I was a kid," said Hazard per the Times post-game, which on this evidence is significantly better than the sulky teenage years he had to a tee last term.

He scored the game's first goal on 18 minutes after cutting inside from the left flank. It's been a feature of Chelsea's games of late to take control of contests early. Against both Manchester United and Leicester City, they scored well before the 10-minute mark. 

A quick word too for Chelsea's hitherto forgotten man Pedro. So underwhelming last season, it was expected he would again be little more than a bit-part player under Conte, which is quite the fall from grace for a forward who had spent the rest of his career at Barcelona and has picked up 56 caps for Spain.

Since being given an opportunity against Leicester City, he has dovetailed perfectly with Costa and Hazard to leave the one Chelsea player who didn't underperform last season, Willian, kicking his heels on the bench. Pedro's two assists on Saturday matched his total for the entirety of last term.

Again it is Conte's system that has brought the best out of him, with Moses' buccaneering forays from wingback down the right giving Pedro licence to drift inside and play between the lines where just like Hazard, he is at his most effective.

Everton boss Ronald Koeman accepted Chelsea were on a different level to his side on the day, per the Guardian: "I have never seen a team so strong playing this system. The movements of Hazard and Costa, it is difficult."

Koeman's decision to match Chelsea's formation proved as productive as fancying your chances of taking on Lewis Hamilton in a go-kart made from discarded pram wheels.

Even Scholes enjoyed it, eulogising on BT (h/t the Telegraph) about Conte's touchline behaviour, which, of course, had earned him a public admonishment from Mourinho when Chelsea beat United 4-0 in October.

"It was brilliant, exhibition at times. Everton's normally a decent team but it was sensational.

"There was always an end product. I loved the manager at 3, 4 was up egging them on."

Mourinho is getting it from all angles. His record at United is so wretched even David Moyes has had the temerity to cough theatrically whenever comparative statistics between the pair of them have been aired recently. Given how he's got on since leaving United, it's a little like Idi Amin arguing his human rights record wasn't so bad, in comparison to Pol Pot.

Were it not for his loose mouth, Mourinho could have taken consolation from the fact Sunday's win at least silenced an eye-watering statistic that had gained plenty of traction a day earlier. There's nothing to see here, now Mourinho has won one more Premier League game than Conte since the start of last season.

Ahem.

It is Conte's switch from 4-2-3-1 to 3-4-3 that has rightly been hailed as the key factor in Chelsea's transformation from the side routed 3-0 by Arsenal at the back end of September to the current incarnation on a five-game winning run, scoring 16 goals without reply.

Conte still has some way to go to match his compatriot Carlo Ancelotti's march (run doesn't quite cut it) from April to September 2010 that saw his Chelsea team score 35 without reply. Now that's fantastico.

Few would have been surprised had Conte started the season with a back three, given it was the system he employed to great success with both Juventus and Italy. He's been subtler than that, maybe even calculated.

Andre Villas-Boas and Rafa Benitez had both toyed with employing a high line before him. They would have been met with less resistance had they mooted the idea of changing the club's badge from a lion to a monkey.

Whereas Mourinho has tried to fix long-standing issues at Manchester United like an electrician trying to change a plug while wearing boxing gloves, Conte has been much cuter. A change to three at the back only arrived after consecutive defeats in the league. It was pitched as a change born from pragmatism rather than philosophy. Rather than it be about him, his vision, it was about the team.

Chelsea have arrived at the place he probably always envisaged they would end up at but have done so organically. How can his players or supporters argue with the results?

Saturday's victory was achieved with the same side for a fourth consecutive league game. Willian, Cesc Fabregas, John Terry, Oscar and Michy Batshuayi were on the substitutes' bench.

Dissenting voices have been conspicuous only in absence; with Terry's retention, after Abramovich and his board had seemingly signalled at the end of last season he would be let go, demonstrating Conte is not a man to be overawed at dealing with big personalities or for that matter leaving them out. No drama, everyone is happy.

At United, there have been so many leaks that Old Trafford has been entered into the Origami World Championship. The mistreatment of Bastian Schweinsteiger has been the biggest cause celebre in Manchester since Deirdre Barlow was falsely imprisoned in Coronation Street, while at the weekend it was the turn of Anthony Martial's agent to lambast Mourinho's curt handling of his client.

Mourinho's deployment of his own signing Henrikh Mkhitaryan has been baffling to the point of being almost unnerving. Morgan Schneiderlin and Memphis Depay will almost certainly be on the move in January, while Smalling and Shaw are unlikely to be cock-a-hoop after effectively being called out for being soft. 

According to the Times' Jonathan Northcroft, select journalists have been "briefed stories about a cull of eight underperforming players."

Mourinho may no longer be as in vogue as he once was, but to write off a serial winner entirely after 11 Premier league games, 27 if you included his final disastrous season at Chelsea, seems a stance fuelled as much by wishful thinking on the part of his detractors as it is any great prescience.

What will get to Mourinho, however, is how quickly Conte has turned it around at Chelsea, while his own vision for Manchester United seems at present as shapeless as his predecessors'. Throughout his career the Portuguese has prided himself on being a quick-fix expert, who eschews the notion a manager needs time.

In his first season at Chelsea, he took them from second place the previous campaign to winning the Premier League with the most points ever achieved (95) and the fewest goals conceded (15). Likewise at Inter Milan, he escalated their forward trajectory at an exhilarating speed.

If on taking the Old Trafford reins he dreamed of doing something similar, it seems such optimism has dissipated long before the turn of the year. He needs time at United, there's no doubt about that.

And if he no longer has the capacity to hit the ground running, he's a mere mortal like everyone else. Maybe that's why he's so grumpy.

The problem for Mourinho is Conte might not need anything like as much time as he does.