goal.com
The Blues boss has made erratic selection decisions this season, but has been let down by his players and owner Roman Abramovich, who failed to back him in the transfer market.
Jose Mourinho’s parting comment at the Britannia Stadium was that of a man who feels he has been treated differently from, and worse than, everyone else. “It is a bit strange because when a few months ago I won so many matches and was champion of England, people were saying there were some things more important than the result,” he complained. “Now results are everything.”
But then results have always been everything to Mourinho. He has defined himself by them, partly because they have been better than everyone else’s. Now they are extraordinarily poor. Chelsea have become also-rans, out of the title race and the Capital One Cup before November arrives.
It has prompted a search for a scapegoat which, as Mourinho is under particular pressure, is pointing to the manager’s door. And, indeed, as he endures the worst season of his career, he has mishandled and misjudged much. Yet blaming Mourinho alone is to deflect from a wider problem. This is a catastrophe caused by the failings of the many, not the few.
Mourinho ranks prime among them. His tried-and-trusted tactics have failed, on and off the field. His teams have lined up in their favoured 4-2-3-1 formation as ever. But they have been caught on the counter-attack more than usual, conceded from set-pieces in uncharacteristic fashion and been overpowered in midfield in ways they were not in the past.
The Portuguese has adopted his favoured approach of trying to instil a siege mentality. The world, he has suggested, is conspiring against Chelsea. Yet if they have been luckless at times, the conspiracy theories have backfired. The squad's indiscipline, and their manager’s, means their name has been dragged through the mud. That matters at an image-conscious club. Many of the refereeing decisions that have gone against them have been perfectly reasonable. Mourinho’s mood has infected his players and at times they have seemed more intent on waging war with officials than defeating opponents.
Yet those players have to shoulder responsibility for the marked decline in their performances. Diego Costa accepted his share by admitting he returned from his summer break overweight. Mourinho trusted his charges, granting them more time off than many of their peers. That seems a forgivable mistake, but they have never recaptured their sharpness. The two Serbs, Nemanja Matic and Branislav Ivanovic, may have been overworked last season. It does not fully explain how both appear to have lost a yard of pace this season.
Cesc Fabregas has one assist in his first 10 Premier League games. This time last season, he had 11. Eden Hazard has gone 18 Chelsea games without a goal, his longest drought for the club. This may be the perfect storm of individuals playing badly in a collective crisis. Somewhere along the line, however, reputations have to be justified, reminders produced of why these players were deemed the best in the league in their positions. Only Willian has enhanced his standing.
Mourinho has not helped with erratic decision-making, wielding the axe to John Terry, Gary Cahill, Matic and Hazard but persevering with Fabregas and Ivanovic until injury compelled him to take the struggling right-back out of fray.
But he has a point if he privately thinks the club have hindered him. His doubts about the £20 million left-back Baba Rahman, granted a mere 93 minutes of Premier League football, have been advertised. It means he cannot swap Cesar Azpilicueta to right-back. Hence the sight of the lumbering central defender Kurt Zouma gamely attempting to impersonate a full-back. West Ham exploited his unfamiliarity with the position with clinical cleverness.
And in 2014 Chelsea were the most decisive buyers in a transformative transfer window, signing Fabregas and Costa early on. By 2015, they were dithering and denied, thwarted in their attempts to bring in John Stones and Paul Pogba, who would have strengthened the spine of the side, and fiddling at the fringes of the squad. Pedro was the closest thing to a superstar addition. He scored on his debut, but his only subsequent goal came against Walsall. Papy Djilobodji, whose solitary minute of football came against the Saddlers, seems the strangest signing of the summer.
Radamel Falcao may be the worst. Bringing in a busted flush as their first arrival sent a terrible message. Chelsea had displayed a clarity of thought in earlier windows, bringing in Matic and bringing back Thibaut Courtois. Not this time. The lines of communication between Mourinho and the board seemed blurred. Abramovich has to consider the influence of his own allies in any analysis of Chelsea’s struggles.
There is a further factor. Mourinho has pleaded bad luck at previous times in his career. Now he has actually suffered from it. Losing Courtois for three months, so soon after Petr Cech’s sale, was a case in point. Should Costa’s rib injury, sustained at Stoke on Tuesday, prove serious then Chelsea will be without both their premier goalkeeper and goalscorer.
Games tend to be decided in either box and the margins between success and failure can be narrow. Fabregas was fractionally offside when an equaliser was disallowed at West Ham; within a few minutes Matic was sent off and the complexion of the match changed. Chelsea have encountered in-form opponents – Southampton and Everton’s best performances of the season have definitely come at their expense – and seemingly unbeatable goalkeepers alike. Jack Butland’s penalty save from Hazard, rubber-stamping their Capital One Cup exit, proved as much.
Yet the Belgian’s spot-kick was not perfect. As Chelsea are discovering, every error can be costly. They have made too many, and there are guilty parties all over Stamford Bridge.
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