I know that I am just a young guy with a passion for Chelsea, and my opinion is not really a respected one in the footballing world, but after yesterdays not shocking, yet somehow surprising events, I wanted to get my opinion out there. I’m going to discuss my opinions on where it all went wrong for Mourinho and Chelsea.
Where it all started
Most people would pin-point this years pre-season, or the transfer market, or the Eva Carneiro dispute as the root of this season’s struggles. But, I want to rewind just under a year, 352 days to be exact, to New Year’s Day, 2015. Chelsea played Spurs, and as you will remember, beaten 5-3.
This for me was the start of the problems. Chelsea showed issues defensively, it was the first time Mourinho had conceded five in the Premier League, and therefore, a change in style ensued. Chelsea stopped the free-flowing, fast, attacking football that had blown many sides away since August to a defensively based tactic that tried to limit the amount of goals they conceded and tried to win games by the odd goal.
| Statistic | Before and Including Tottenham 5-3 Chelsea | After Tottenham 5-3 Chelsea |
|---|---|---|
| Goals Scored | 42 | 27 |
| Goals Conceded | 17 | 14 |
| Points per Game | 2.3 | 2.28 |
| Goals per Game | 2.1 | 1.5 |
| Goals Conceded per Game | 0.85 | 0.78 |
As the table above shows, Chelsea did actually shut-up shop after the defeat, going from conceding 0.85 goals per game to 0.78 goals per game, and scoring 1.5 goals per game after the defeat compared to 2.1 before. I think this is one of the reasons we are struggling this season, our creative players have been drilled into thinking about their defensive responsibilities, which, yes, are important, but you have to score goals to win games, and therefore they have lost their creative spark, and that is why we have struggled to score goals this season, which has meant we can’t outscore our opponents, like we did at the beginning of last season – look at Everton 3-6 Chelsea, for example.
The West Brom defeat
In the second to last game of the season, with the title already in the bag, we faced West Brom at the Hawthorns. Sorry to remind you, but we lost 3-0. I remember watching the game on TV, and thinking ‘we don’t look like we care that we’re losing’. Yes, it had been a long season, and we’d won the title, but that’s not an excuse to not look like we don’t care, show a lack of passion, and lose in the manner we did. And, looking back on it, there are quite a few similarities to that performance and ones against similar sides this year. Let’s compare the West Brom game from last season to the one against West Ham this season, yet another loss.
| Statistic | vs West Brom | vs West Ham |
|---|---|---|
| Shots | 12 | 9 |
| Chances Created | 8 | 7 |
| Take Ons | 22 | 21 |
| Tackles (%) | 47 | 45 |
| Interceptions | 7 | 14 |
| Clearances | 12 | 29 |
| Blocks | 5 | 10 |
As you can see from that, there are many similarities between our performance then and against West Ham. And that shows that this issue has been bubbling under for quite some time, that the players aren’t trying, and aren’t playing with passion. That for me, isn’t acceptable. If you don’t play with passion, you don’t play well, as your head isn’t focused on the game. As you can see, we created roughly the same amount of chances, take ons and won roughly the same amount of tackles. Under half of tackles won is unacceptable, and shows the player’s lack of desire to win the ball, and that shows a lack of passion, and that is half the reason why we are struggling to win games.
Pre-Season struggles
After a long season, and having won the title Jose Mourinho decided to let the players have a longer summer break. On the face of it, it seems like an excellent idea, after all, they won the title and Capital One Cup, so its a little reward for their successes. However, this created problems. Our pre-season consisted of four games, against Red Bull NY, Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona and Fiorentina. We lost to the two weaker sides, Red Bulls and Fiorentina, and rightly so, as our performances were very poor.
We only beat the two big guns on penalties – so in reality, we drew, and apparently we didn’t play that well. This would have dropped our morale a little going into the new season, which wouldn’t have helped the situation. Furthermore, a later start would have meant players had less time to recover their fitness, as Diego Costa told reporters a few months ago:
I’m going to be very honest, Five or six weeks ago, I was not on top of my game, at least physically. I got injured at the end of the season and then I went on holiday. Maybe I got out of my diet and when I came back I was not the way I was supposed to be. I was a little bit overweight, and that affected my game. You can be selfish and blame it on the manager but I’m not going to do that. I’m responsible and so are the other guys. We need to blame the players. We know we were not 100 per cent when we got here. We came back from holiday very confident, and thought we could go back into how it was last season. When we actually realised where we were, the team was already in a bad situation.
But the players lack of awareness of the situation, as Costa spoke about above, suggests maybe they didn’t care, and there we go back to the lack of passion argument. Jose faltered here a little bit, as surely, as boss, its his job to make sure his players are ready for the new season, and are playing and have that passion to make sure they are in good shape. Could this have been Jose’s first mistake in a costly season?
Transfer window worries
Chelsea’s summer window was a shambles. Our pursuits of Paul Pogba and John Stones are well documented, and the officials at the club had made their minds up that we were 100% getting those players. Those two would have certainly provided a huge boost to the club, much as Fabregas and Costa had last season, if we had actually managed to sign them that is.
Instead, we panicked. We splashed out on players that we didn’t need to – Pedro, Djilobodji, Hector and overpaid on Baba Rahman. We didn’t sign anyone of real quality, which is what the likes of Manchester City did with De Bryune, Sterling and Delph. Manchester United also with Memphis Depay, Darmian and Schweinsteiger and Arsenal with Cech. This made us weaker on the scale of things, and therefore, this season was always going to be tougher than we thought. Is this Mourinho’s fault? You can’t say, as we don’t know if he has any say on the transfers officially, but he probably does have some say – even if it’s very small – but it has certainly affected our season.
Adding insult to injury
If a poor pre-season and transfer window wasn’t enough, then enter Eva Carneiro. It was the first day of the season, it was the dying minutes of the game. Chelsea were drawing 2-2 with Swansea City at the Bridge, and Eden Hazard goes down injured. On comes Carneiro and Jon Fearn to tend to him, something that happens multiple times every game. This has created an atmosphere and poor performances, as due to this, the players believe Mourinho doesn’t care about their wellbeing on the pitch. Because of Mourinho’s ignorance, this has created the players to show a lack of effort and respect for the Portuguese.
However, Mourinho was not happy and started ‘verbally attacking’ his doctors. Maybe the frustration of the transfer window and the game got to Jose, but it left a sour taste at the club, as Carneiro lost her job. This was certainly a sign of the terrors to come, and this would have contributed to the poor performances this season, as it created a disgusting atmosphere both in and outside the club.
Player dispute: Is Hazard the ring leader?
We know of a player dispute, as technical director Michael Emenalo said it himself in an interview with ChelseaTV yesterday:
A palpable discord between manager and players and we feel it was time to act.
This concretes reports that Jose had lost the dressing room at Chelsea, but when there is something like this, there is often a ringleader. The English media speculated this was Fabregas, but he quickly shut that down and his post, following the news, on Instagram shows quite the contrary:
However, to me, Eden Hazard seems like the prime suspect. His performances have been well below par, even though he is a slow starter to a season, and his ignorance to Mourinho. Look at Leicester for example, when he was subbed – shows there is some sort of rift between the two. But, if you think about it simply, Hazard was the man down when the doctor fiasco occurred. Could that be the reason why he is possibly leading the revolt? I mean, does he think Mourinho doesn’t care about him because of it? Its certainly a good shout.
Lack of Leaders
The three above were instrumental in Chelsea’s success over the last decade. However, now only John Terry is left. Chelsea have been known to have their leaders. Not just these three, but Cech, Ballack, Makalele to name a few – along side big ego stars, but the leaders, the spine, always brought them down to earth. But these days, we only have Terry, and one person can’t control a whole squad full of egos. And therefore, they’re running rife, which is mostly to blame for Mourinho losing his job.
Mourinho’s part to play
Despite the players having to take most of the blame for Chelsea’s collapse, Chelsea’s most successful boss does have a bit of blame to take. The fact that the players are running riot shows he can’t control the squad, which is kind of important for a manager, otherwise, they won’t buy into your philosophies and won’t respect you, which is exactly what happened to Mourinho. Add that to the completely unprofessional, yet largely entertaining and annoying press interviews, and it really dug him a deep hole. Mourinho knew there were troublesome players in Chelsea squad, calling them ‘bad apples’.
If I were him, I would have isolated those ‘bad apples’. Yes, maybe it would upset other players, and quality of the team may suffer, but as a manager, you need to show you are the boss and the players are not above you, which he allowed to happen, and this was his own shortcoming.
Who is the man to replace Mourinho?
It is widely suspected that Guus Hiddink will return to the club on an interim basis, with the Dutchman filling the same capacity in 2009. The Australian FA seemed to have confirmed this for us, having tweeted.
Our former boss has taken charge @ChelseaFC – good luck Guus!
However, I don’t personally feel that Hiddink is the right man for the job, even on an interim basis. After leaving Chelsea in 2009, he took over the Turkey national team, before heading to Russia to manage Anzhi, and then took charge of the Dutch national side. His last three jobs have been far from successful, all ending in resignations or a sacking respectively and with Hiddink fast approaching 70, I feel that he has lost his touch.
Another supposed candidate for the job is Juande Ramos, a surprise name and a huge risk for the club to take given they’re one point off the relegation zone. His record in the Premier League is pretty poor, having managed cross-city rival Spurs for just a season, and lead them to their worst Premier League start – only picking two points in eight games, a record that is not needed when Chelsea are aiming to avoid relegation and clamber up the table.
My choice of the interim role, I must stress, would be Steve Clarke. The Scotsman did a wonderful job with fellow Premiership side West Brom, and knows the club inside out, having been assistant manager for many years. He’s a no nonsense coach that will quickly stamp out the egos that are running riot at the club currently, and his know-how and love for the club will help us avoid relegation
Long term boss?
Of course, I am not suggesting that Clarke is the long-term heir to Mourinho’s throne, far from it. Pep Guardiola’s name is currently doing the rounds, with a few news outlets reporting the deal is 90% done. However, despite all his success and he’s wonderful style of play, I don’t think he’s right for Chelsea. The English game is very physical, and his sides are not, they rely on trickery and clever movement and possession to win games, and I don’t think that that style of the play would cut it in the Premier League.
My choice would be Diego Simeone. He is quite similar to Mourinho in many ways, and he has shown that he can work with mediocre squads (when you compare Atletico with the likes of Real and Barca) and be successful, taking them to La Liga glory and a Champions League final. And, if Chelsea want a long term approach, Simeone is still young, and can be here for many years. So, that’s my choice to who should replace Mourinho.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it. My opinions on where Chelsea have gone wrong, whose to blame and who is the best candidate to replace Mourinho as boss. Personally, I feel that sacking him was the right decision, but it will hurt us in the long term, as he’ll end up at United or City and dominating the league. But, its happened, and we need to move on, and support the team!
