Mourinho has been a dead man walking since the summer. If you trace these blogs back you'll see that I've referred to that on more than one occasion. The players got him out. Simple. Not all of them, but enough of them.
I really don't think he cares either. In fact, I'd go so far as to say he's been trying to talk himself out of Chelsea for quite some time. He knew he'd lost some big players. He knew it was time to go.
Never mind that there was the 4-year contract signed after last season's title win. It was only ever worth 6 months compensation. Again, as I mentioned recently, these contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on. Football clubs, like big companies, will fire someone, then let the attack dogs loose. They won't pay what your deal is worth, they bully and frighten an individual into a settlement. They'll often just pay until the manager/coach gets a new job, 'mitigating' his loss. The last time Chelsea had Mourinho out of work for 9 months. I don't believe they'll stop him returning to work like that again.
Monday evening was generally regarded as 'breaking point'. I've always said of Mourinho's post match interviews, don't listen to what he's saying, work out what he's trying to say. Monday was different. He had the scalpel out. It was an honest assessment of what he believed was happening and in delivering it, he cut more than one or two of his players to pieces. He had been betrayed, he said. What we didn't know until Belgian journalist Kristof Terreur told me and Andy on beIN Sports, was that Mourinho had accused his players of this crime BEFORE the game. (Kristof is close to a couple of Chelsea's starting X1. You work it out!) Perhaps that's why Eden Hazard didn't fancy the game too much and left it as quickly as he could? Anyway, Mourinho knew it was the end and he clinically put, what he saw as the guilty parties, to the knife.
That's not to say that the fall out between manager and players was a one-way street. We can only imagine what it's been like at the Cobham training base this season - or hazard a guess by piecing things together quietly asking those who've been there! Mourinho changed this season. He saw demons where there weren't any. He wanted fights that were unnecessary - no change there you might think, but I can't help recalling one incident in particular. It was after the Liverpool defeat, when he took his entire coaching staff onto the pitch. Why I wondered? I'll tell you. It turned out that Mourinho thought his office was bugged! He also thought the training ground was bugged. He wanted to discuss things with his staff and he believed the centre of the pitch was the only place to go that was safe. I suspect he knew we'd wonder why. I also suspect he wasn't too bothered about us finding out! So does that make him paranoid? Or did he have a case? I can't answer the second of those questions yet.
So what next? He'll have success all over again somewhere else. Ramon Calderon the X- President of Real Madrid, told us at beIN Sports months ago that he was destined for The Bernabeau again. I'm told Jorge Mendes, 'super-agent' has been working on a deal for some time. Does that make Mourinho as duplicitous as his players? Let's wait and see what happens, but there were previously three stumbling blocks as to why it couldn't happen - Iker Casillas who's gone. Ronaldo, who will go at the end of the season and Sergio Ramos, who was supposed to go last summer - to United. Interesting eh?
And what of Mourinho's replacement at Chelsea? Guus Hiddink is most likely (not confirmed as I write), but I'm not convinced he's a good choice. I'll tell you a story that might worry Chelsea fans. Hiddink is a laid back fire fighter - in, fix, move on. He doesn't want permanency. Last time at The Bridge he had a squad that could look after itself - and he let it. Lampard, Terry, Drogba, Cole, big characters. HIddink could afford to be relaxed. He was one Saturday morning before a home game, sitting on his hotel balcony in the sunshine, when he was called by a member of staff. 'What's the team today Guus?' Was the question. 'Who are we playing?' Was the reply. When he was told he followed up with this 'It doesn't matter. We're better than them. We'll win'. Confident or arrogant? Neither really, he just knew he could rely on the big boys to get a result. I don't believe he can now. He's going to have to work at it.
Perhaps that's why the first call this week was to Juande Ramos. His agent was in London Thursday and Friday trying to thrash out a deal. The stumbling block was that Ramos wanted a year on the short term deal Chelsea were offering. Why Ramos? Simple. Michael Emenalo, Abramovic's trusted lieutenant, knows him well.
Ramos tried to take Emenalo to Spurs when he was there. He played for Ramos at Lleida. They go back a long way. Emenalo would've preferred Ramos, so how will he get on who Hiddink this time? Perhaps it won't matter. Perhaps Emanalo won't be around for much longer?
It's now nine coaches/managers at Stamford Bridge in the last decade. During that time they've won everything, so who says stability matters?
A constant during most of that time has been Emanalo. The feeling is he and Mourinho didn't see eye to eye. What I do know is this - Emanalo was bang out of order referring to Mourinho, the most successful manager in Chelsea's history, as 'the individual' when he spoke to Chelsea tv about him. How dare he? That, for me, summed it all up. The 'individual' is better off out of it.
One last thing. We've now lost three of last season's top eight coaches - Mourinho, Rodgers and Monk. Amazing. Who could've imagined that in July? The current favourite to go next is LVG. Pellegrini will go next summer. This season football really has been turned on its head.
