Mourinho’s ‘Machiavellian’ act growing old

Jonathan Wilson writes that Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho is more paranoid than compelling when complaining about refs.

Jose Mourinho and Chelsea face off with Liverpool on Sunday. Andy Rain / EPA

With Jose Mourinho, subplots are inevitable. He so often looks to manipulate the perception of an event to his advantage that it is assumed he is always up to something, that nothing he says is quite as it seems.

That is what makes the events of the past week so fascinating.

Mourinho was at his Machiavellian worst on Saturday, hinting darkly at conspiracies against him. No matter that the one major decision Mike Dean obviously got wrong was his failure to send off Ramires for an elbow on Sebastian Larsson. In Mourinho’s telling, a referee’s plot was afoot because Chelsea had a decent penalty turned down in the first half and because Sunderland got a late penalty for a slightly odd challenge from Cesar Azpilicueta, in which his trailing leg caught Jozy Altidore’s standing leg.

Mourinho is not the only one who does this – although the way he still harps on about Luis Garcia’s “ghost goal” for Liverpool in the Uefa Champions League semi-final without mentioning the red card to Petr Cech and the penalty that would have ensued had the goal not been given, suggests he harbours grudges longer than most.

It is a deeply unpleasant and worrying trend. Fans happily buy into the confection, and the result is often that the combination of a manager’s moan and an outpouring on social media creates a myth of controversy where none existed.

That is a major problem for the game, because the coverage of a manager’s complaint and the scale of the Twitter fury will be greater depending on the size of the club involved, generating the impression that big clubs are fighting the bias of referees when, in fact, all evidence suggests the opposite is true.

Sunderland won a perfectly understandable penalty at Chelsea that has generated reams of comment and will always be looked at as a questionable decision because of that comment. The fact they were denied a clear penalty at home against West Ham United when Kevin Nolan punched the ball out of the box is already almost forgotten.

It also is a problem because, by crying wolf every time a decision goes against their sides, managers risk obscuring genuine grievances. Paradoxically, by hinting at conspiracies, they are creating an environment in which conspiracies could exist.

When Roy Keane was Sunderland’s manager he had a rule he pretty much stuck to of criticising referees only when he could not understand how they had got a decision wrong.

One incident came during a home defeat to Everton when Andy Johnson leapt to meet a cross, missed his header and the ball went in off his arm. Replays showed a clear handball, but Keane did not complain because he admitted that to him, as to most people in the ground, it had looked a clean header on first viewing.

Football would be healthier if others followed that example.

Mourinho’s mock congratulation of the officials was part of a more protracted sulk. Over the past month he has regularly sent his assistant, Steve Holland, to perform news conferences in his place. The Portuguese has complained about the lack of “real forwards” in his squad and – put out by having to play a key league game between the two legs of a Champions League semi-final – he has threatened to play a weakened team against Liverpool tomorrow.

Such graceless antics have been a feature of his career, but they usually come when Mourinho is reaching the end of his stint at a club.

Given how trigger-happy Roman Abramovich can be, it is reasonable to suggest that a manager other than Mourinho might think his job was on the line in Wednesday’s Uefa Champions League semi-final second leg. Never before has Abramovich not dismissed a manager who has failed to win the league after a full season in charge.

Because of his record, Mourinho is probably safe, but given how much he clearly wanted the Manchester United job and given that it is vacant, he may not be too bothered even if his Chelsea job is at risk.

All of which creates the distant but deliciously possible narrative of Chelsea driving Mourinho into the hands of United. Delicious for everybody apart from Juan Mata, that is.