Jose Mourinho is an influential man. So much so that Chelsea have retained his stamp for much of the past 12 years. Until, perhaps, Antonio Conte dropped some of his preferred players, ditched his back four and gave opportunities to some of those Mourinho overlooked.
Yet his influence was still apparent at two clubs this weekend. The game plan had secured Manchester United a 0-0 draw at Liverpool last Monday was deployed by two managers. West Bromwich Albion's Tony Pulis copied it for his trip to Anfield and was behind inside 20 minutes. Mourinho deployed it again at Stamford Bridge and was a goal adrift after 30 seconds.
He duly suffered his heaviest Premier League defeat, 4-0 to his former club. Schadenfreude abounded. "Jose still knows how to get the best out of Chelsea," tweeted his former player Eidur Gudjohnsen. "You're not special anymore," chorused his former fans at Stamford Bridge.
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Despite a harrowing afternoon, that is yet to be proved. What it did illustrate was that the ultra-negative approach that worked at Anfield was the quickest of quick fixes. Within a week, United looked broken again. Mourinho made his name as the ultimate big-game tactician. Now, while Conte, Arsene Wenger, Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino have at least one victory against potential title rivals this season, Mourinho has one point from nine.
He forged a reputation as the best defensive strategist around. His former team only conceded five league goals at Stamford Bridge in the 2004/05 season, but that was in 19 games. His current side were breached four times in 90, traumatic minutes.
The problem of planning to keep a clean sheet can be when the game plan is rendered irrelevant by a concession, let alone the quickest of the season. Mourinho’s Chelsea were a byword for stability. His United looked an example of fragility. Daley Blind was their most reliable defender last season, but has cost them goals against Manchester City and Chelsea. Chris Smalling was at fault, to varying degrees, for three goals. Eric Bailly had seemed the most reliable but his body betrayed him. His knee injury left Mourinho fearing the worst. He now needs to rebuild a defence seemingly shorn of its cornerstone.
Mourinho appeared to have concluded United were too attacking and too open when beaten by City. He went to the other extreme at Liverpool and Chelsea. It may sound a strange comment to make after a 4-0 defeat, but United were too defensive. Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford tracked Chelsea’s wing-backs rather than looking to get behind them. The only other time Rashford was deployed almost as an auxiliary full-back was by Louis van Gaal at Anfield in March. It didn’t work then either. The theory that Chelsea’s new-look defence could be fallible went untested by United. The notion Mourinho had forged another indomitable team, unafraid to be ugly providing they were successful, was disproved.
Marouane Fellaini, effective at Anfield and awful at Stamford Bridge, looks another of the quickest of quick fixes. The ungainly Belgian, once again, looks the opposite of a United player. Mourinho’s decision-making, which brought grudging admiration on Monday, is under the microscope again. The continued omission of Michael Carrick seems odd and that of Henrikh Mkhitaryan frankly bizarre. Paul Pogba remains an expensive enigma, in search of a position, a role and an on-field relationship. There is no established central-midfield duo or trio. The situation on the flanks is as confused: Mourinho has tried eight different wingers of sorts, with the striker Rashford seemingly his preferred option despite his diminishing returns.
It means Mourinho, the manager everyone else at Chelsea had to emulate, can now learn from his former club. Conte responded to damning defeats with a radical reshuffle. He promoted unfashionable players, implemented his own ideas, showed clinical decision-making and, most importantly, won. Each was a hallmark of Mourinho for years.
Others may still look to him, but perhaps he needs to look elsewhere for inspiration. Because while Mourinho complained individual errors were a cause of the thrashing at Stamford Bridge, some of them were his own.
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