Mourinho Mk II
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Loading ...Calm, rational and strangely diplomatic, José Mourinho breezed back into Stamford Bridge yesterday afternoon with the air of a man coming home to settle down. His official unveiling was never going to be the box-office hit that followed his initial arrival in West London back in the summer of 2004, in which he gave himself the famous moniker that has stuck ever since and demonstrated the brash arrogance that only winning the European Cup can bring.
The Special One’s second coming was far more reserved, laidback and carefree. He still may not be ‘one from the bottle’ but this was about as explosive as a 9-year-old can of Sagres. He had little interest in providing the gathered media vultures with headlines to make their jobs easier, preferring instead to consider his answers and deliver his usual in-depth responses to the range of topics put to him. As he explained himself, he was more serene than in 2004, where he felt the need to act like the new, arrogant cool kid on the block to the expectant British press:
“When I arrived here in 2004 you pushed me a lot in that first press conference to have a strong approach. In this moment the situation is different; you know me, you know my history in the British and European game so I don’t think I need that approach, I just want to be calm and give the best I can.”
Nine years on and returning to SW6 he was now ‘the happy one’, seemingly ready to get started on a long-term project for the first time in his 13-year managerial career:
”I want to believe it is possible [to do better], I always trust my work. In this case I know many of the people that belong to the club and I know the mentality that these people have. My career was built on success. In every club I was able to win trophies and leave different legacies. I want to work hard and work with quality.
I am calm and relaxed but at the same time there is something I want very clear – I didn’t choice for my career a comfortable position because I’m returning to a house where I was happy and successful and the fans love me. I am coming exactly with the opposite perspective - I think I have more responsibility because of that, the expectations are higher because people know what I can deliver. The club knows my mentality and the fans can be sure that I come here to give my best and bring success.”
The bulk of that work now will be based around two of Mourinho’s new buzzwords: stability and profile. Both principles are intertwined and centre on the different look of this Chelsea squad than the one he took charge of back in 2004; the players are younger, with great potential to be unlocked, rather than the mature finished articles that the Portuguese found on his arrival before:
‘We have the same kind of vision, I am more than happy to follow this philosophy they have for the team and I am more than happy to be back. I think I’m in the best moment of my career in terms of experience and knowledge. There is a group of boys that I think Chelsea did very well to get, these young boys with great potential and great quality that I will be more than happy to work with and try to improve them.
Every club always has an ambition to add a couple of new players to improve the squad and give some different qualities and increase the competitiveness but the most important part of my job in this moment is around the improvement of the boys. They have big potential and I have conditions as a manager to improve and help them.
Of course we look for stability. I had experiences and desires to move for new challenges but in this moment I am completely in another direction. You see the profile of the squad is asking for that, if you want the best education for 22, 24, 25-year-olds the players need that stability. The club has a fantastic structure but stability is needed in football terms, in ideas and game principles and that is the only way we can build a team and reach success again. It is a different profile of work but a profile I needed in this moment of my career.”
Mourinho spoke like a man acknowledging he was about to embark on a different kind of football project, one in which involved development and improvement on the road to eventual long-term success:
“When I came in 2004 I think Chelsea needed that last push in the direction of the trophies and success, the age of the players was perfect for that jump in quality. I think the squad and the club needed that direction and we did it well by winning and probably even after my departure that base stayed in the club and probably helped them to reach more success in the future.
This time I arrive and silverware is nothing new in the club, the club has won the Premier League and the Champions League since I have gone and this moment is right for a different approach. I think we are all prepared for a different era with a different profile of team. A football team without the fingerprint of his manager is never a football team, it looks like it is but it is not. The club has an identity and we want that even more and more present.”
He referenced the likes of Juan Mata, David Luiz, Oscar and Eden Hazard, though also indicated there was room in his squad for the likes of Kevin de Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Tomas Kalas, three players who spent last season out on loan at Werder Bremen, West Brom and Vitesse Arnhem respectively:
“First of all I want to meet them. I think it’s only fair that the players are the first ones to know about their future and from their manager and not by the media. I had the chance to speak to some of them, I need my time to speak and meet them and we need altogether to make the best decisions for the players and Chelsea.
They are the profile of player Chelsea invested a lot in the past and I think it is my work, my contribution to extract the best out of that investment. Imagine you bring back Lukaku, de Bruyne and perhaps Kalas, that’s zero spent because the investment was made before. We want to go in this direction.”
It is a direction that has previously been spearheaded by Michael Emenalo, the club’s director of football and a man likely to remain very much involved with the running of football operations at the club. As Mourinho explained, it was nothing new for him to work with a football board, and he seemed keen to stress this working relationship was normal and entirely healthy.
However, the new-look ‘calmer one’ will not have fooled many; beneath the immaculate façade bubbles the real Mourinho, the man who will fight every perceived injustice with as much vigour and passion as before, the man who can’t help himself but to pipe up and have a little dig.
There were subtle reminders of that Mourinho throughout this opening press conference, most notably when he was questioned about his turbulent time in Madrid. He snapped back at one female reporter who asked about his treatment of Iker Casillas, the Real captain, asking her to explain his apparent ill-treatment before responding: ‘I play the best players for the team. If I think somebody deserves to play then he has to play. All my decisions are based on meritocracy and after that I can sleep well.’
Then he had the female translator, a job he knows only too well, in his sights, finding himself unable to resist a delicate damning of her interpretation of his words with a gentle wobble of the head and a hand gesture that said ‘it’s half right, but not exactly what I said.’ It was a reminder of a characteristic that makes him such a winner with the media, so much so that Chelsea had more press applications for the gathering than for any game at Stamford Bridge last season, and also indicative of his perfectionist nature.
Yet it was following a question about Andres Iniesta, who recently claimed Mourinho had destroyed Spanish football, which wound the new Chelsea manager up the most. His retort was well reasoned as ever, however there remained an undeniable irritation in his response that told a story of its own. Mourinho might be calm and happy now but don’t be fooled; he’s certainly ready to explode when the circumstances dictate.
He was careful not to be drawn on Rafael Benitez’s era at Stamford Bridge, choosing his words about the Spanish interim manager’s use of club captain John Terry (‘I know what he [John] can give so let’s try to make him a very important player again but Benitez’s decisions are his decisions’) and his Europa League success (‘Europa League winners can be analysed in two ways. One way: you won it. The other way: why did you win it? You won it because you didn’t get through the group phase of the Champions League. You don’t have teams like Steaua Bucharest in the Champions League…’) carefully.
Yet he’s also ready to launch the charm offensive once again, a tactic that works so well in making him the firm media favourite that he is. First he gave the gathered media a bit of faint praise, commenting that ‘you are not the worst’ he had worked with. Then, when asked whether he was hurt by apparent rejections for the vacant Manchester jobs he broke into his first real smile, shook his head and remarked: ‘No, I am where I want to be. I wouldn’t change it for anything.’ Is this a better job? ‘It is my job. It’s the job I wanted and the job I was offered and accepted immediately.’
It was a response that indicated the preceding 7 managers to have taken the Chelsea managerial hot-seat were merely keeping his seat warm, though some will naturally maintain his return is a marriage of convenience rather than of real desire, that Roman Abramovich really wanted Pep Guardiola while Mourinho was after the job at Old Trafford. The in’s and out’s of that remain out of the public domain, however, and Mourinho is keen to make it clear he’s happy as larry to be home:
‘I am happy to be back at this club, in this league and in this city. I think I’m back because the owner and I are in the best moments of our careers and ready to work together again and with much better conditions at this time to succeed and to have what this club wants, which is stability. If I have to choose a nickname for this period I would choose the happy one because I am very happy.
Since 7 or 8 eight months ago I wanted to go where I really like it very, very much and now I am where I wanted to be. We have a contract of four years and I hope we can go to the last day of this contract and if at the end the club is happy and wants me to stay I will be more than happy.’
Work must now start on reshaping the current Chelsea squad. Mourinho joked that he now had 60 players to contend with, a dig at the constant press speculation about new signings, however his options are not far short of that enormous number. Returning loanees include Josh McEachran, Nathaniel Chalobah, Michael Essien, Gael Kakuta, Lucas Piazon, Patrick Van Aanholt, Todd Kane, Sam Hutchinson, Thibaut Courtois, Thorgan Hazard, Matej Delac and Jeffrey Bruma, as well as de Bruyne, Lukaku and Kalas.
There are also blossoming young talents progressing quickly through the youth ranks, including Lewis Baker, Islam Feruz and Jeremie Boga. They may not be quite ready to take a first team role next season (though Nathan Aké might), however the best path forward for their development must be shaped in the coming weeks. Then there’s the one or two additions that the manager explained were necessary to maintain constant improvement in any squad, with strong links recently to Edinson Cavani of Napoli and Andre Schurrle of Bayer Leverkusen. Pre-season may not begin until another few weeks, however there is plenty of work for Mourinho to be getting on with in the meantime.
Yet the main message of this second debut press conference, in spite of the banal questioning and repetitiveness from the floor, was that the King was home, still special (‘I’m still confident. But at the same time I’m more stable, more mature. If I was a proud guy before now I’ve done more; I’ve been at Inter and Real, I’ve won more titles’) and returning with the same objectives as before; success, titles and silverware. Only this time he’s going to do it differently and, with any luck, he’s going to hang around to keep it going for the long haul.
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Sam can be found on Twitter, @daspecial_1.
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A good post. My interest focuses around: will he play the tika-taka football desired, I think by RA, and this “brand” so suited to the “three amigos” or will he go back to the power play which brought him success first time around. Can he combine the two? Which ever, we do need at least one more forward and we do need a screening midfilder.
I think its almost virtually impossible for this current Chelsea side to play any other way. The side doesn’t have the big, powerful and athletic figures of Ballack, Essien and a Young Frank Lampard. They’ve been replaced with the clever, more technical and creative amigos, Hazard, Oscar and Mata who thrive on intricate play and in finding and exploiting space. Of course it would help if said intricate play was finished off by a clinical striker, something Torres is not anymore and that Ba has fluctuated in during the season.