Tired and timorous: Jose Mourinho’s refusal to rotate catching up with Chelsea

'Chelsea will probably still win the Premier League,' writes Jonathan Wilson, but perhaps Jose Mourinho's style has 'created a damaging negativity' within the flagging club.

Jose Mourinho shown talking to Diego Costa during Chelsea's Wednesday exit from the Champions League. Stefan Wermuth / Reuters / March 11, 2015

Chelsea will probably still win the Premier League. They're five points clear at the top of the table, with a game in hand, and there's been nothing in recent weeks to suggest that Manchester City have the wherewithal to put together the sort of run that could create pressure. But as they approach the finish line there are far more questions about this side than there were as they exploded from the starting gate.

Jose Mourinho demanded a reaction against Southampton on Sunday and, particularly given the way the goals have dried up for Ronald Koeman’s side, he will probably get it, but the Premier League has seemed secure for so long that it almost seems an afterthought. In the aftermath of Wednesday’s Champions League exit against Paris Saint-Germain, there were two major – related - questions. Firstly, why did Chelsea look so exhausted and, secondly, why were they so timorous?

The first question is relatively simple to answer. Mourinho has barely rotated, sticking to his core of key players to the extent that six of his outfielders have played over 2000 minutes of league football this season (no City outfielder has played more than the 1793 minutes racked up by Yaya Toure; Arsenal have only three outfielders with over 2000 minutes, Manchester United one, Liverpool three and Tottenham two.) Little wonder Diego Costa and Nemanja Matic, in particular, looked shattered by the end of Wednesday’s game.

Mourinho gambled – perhaps inspired by Atletico Madrid’s success last season – that he could prosper by use of what he has termed in the past his “magic circle” and almost nobody else. Perhaps he even thought he could have the league wrapped up by Christmas and then rest domestically as he focused on the Champions League. If that was his plan, it almost worked: Chelsea were, after all, eight points clear of City at the end of November before a slight December wobble coincided with City’s one consistent patch of form this season to narrow the gap.

But the result has been that the peripheral players have looked extremely peripheral, struggling to adapt to the team on the odd occasions when they were called upon. It’s easy to be wise after the event, but could Mohamed Salah, in scintillating form at Fiorentina, not have been given more of a role? Could Loic Remy not have taken some of the pressure off Diego Costa? Was there really no way to ease the burden on Cesc Fabregas?

Mourinho has never rotated as much as some others, but this season’s figures are still striking: last season five of his outfielders played more than 2500 minutes, the same as Liverpool and Arsenal, while City had three and Spurs and United one each. The non-rotation has become extreme – and it may be that rotation is more important in the season following a World Cup when players have had less of a break.

But there is a more worrying issue, and that is reflected in the fact that, including Wednesday, in six of their eight biggest games of the season so far, Chelsea have taken the lead only to end up drawing the game. Fabregas spoke before the PSG game of how Chelsea have failed to kill off opponents in key matches this season, a trend that is particularly troubling because it is so uncharacteristic. That is what Mourinho has always been good at: closing matches down and picking off opponents. He was the one who didn’t blink, yet this season his approach has looked like timorousness, fuelling the theory, advanced most forcefully by Diego Torres in his biography of Mourinho, that the trauma of his final season at Real Madrid has kindled in him a debilitating doubt.

This was supposed to be a proactive Chelsea. The signings of Fabregas and Diego Costa gave them the attacking edge to break down opponents who sat deep against them. Yet Mourinho seems never quite to have trusted the pairing of Matic and Fabregas at the back of midfield in big games; his default has always been to close the space, to protect the back four. It seemed telling at the end of 90 minutes on Wednesday when, having berated Willian, Mourinho responded to his look of confusion by hugging him: this, it seemed, was a player who had lost the confidence or capacity to think for himself.

It’s perhaps hasty to criticise when the approach has worked so well for him in the past, but perhaps the instinctive caution, allied to the paranoia and repeated allegations of conspiracy have created a damaging negativity.

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