Inter coach Spalletti has led the Nerazzurri, from being a side that has failed to play in the Champion’s League for large part of the past decade, to returning to the competition two years in a row, but it has been anything but smooth sailing.
In the first two parts of this article series, the argument as to why Spalletti must be sacked as well as an analysis of Antonio Conte was presented. In this piece, the other main candidate to replace Spalletti, José Mourinho, will be analyzed.
Mourinho’s Strengths And Weaknesses
In his second tenure as Chelsea manager, Mourinho won the Premier League title in the second season back at Stamford Bridge in dominating fashion, with an eight-point gap down to defending champions Manchester City. Newcomers Cesc Fabregas, Diego Costa, Felipe Luis were in fantastic form while club legend Didier Drogba’s return to the club to join the old guard and fellow leaders Petr Cech and John Terry to be a role-model for the newer Chelsea stars, had worked out perfectly.
After winning the title in the 2014-15 season, Mourinho decided to give the players a one-month vacation and opted for a reduced pre-season tour having only three games to prepare for the season to take on Arsenal for the Community Shield.
Diego Costa came back overweight and the team as a whole looked completely out of form and lost the Community Shield match. Mourinho, who had always been strong on preparation and getting off to a flying start to the season did not have his team ready and Chelsea were off to a very poor start in their title defense in the 2015-16 season and never regained form from previous season.
Refusal From Management To Address Team Needs
Roman Abramovich and the club’s management failed to strengthen the team as Mourinho had requested, managing to only add Augsburg left-back Baba Rahman and Stokecity goal-keeper Asmir Begovic as a back-up to Petr Cech, while failing to land Paul Pogba to strengthen the midfield and Rafael Varane to reinforce the defense.
Meanwhile, eager to get back to winning ways, rivals Manchester City made big money moves in signing Raheem Sterling, Kevin de Bruyne and Nicolas Otamendi. While their rivals strengthened their team significantly, Abrahmovich overruled Mourinho and decided to sell Petr Cech to rivals Arsenal despite Mourinho’s desire to keep him for his leadership and compete with Courtois for the starting role.
The Chelsea board also had adopted the strategy to fund the transfer market deals by selling players first. With an aging backline and a need to find John Terry’s replacement, and after failing to acquire Varane, focus was shifted to former Everton center-back, John Stones. He ended up joining Manchester City, and once more the club failed in landing a player needed for Mourinho to successfully lead Chelsea’s title defense.
Losing The Dressing Room And Unavoidable Failure
The stars of the title winning season, Eden Hazard, Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas, and veterans like Ivanovic and captain John Terry, all had a significant drop in form and were unable to fire on all cylinders. Terry was unceremoniously substituted off at half-time in a game against Leicester City after he had a terrible outing against the likes of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez.
As the poor performances continued for Chelsea, Mourinho relied on his tried and tested method of using reverse psychology to criticize his under-performing star players in his attempt to get better performances out of them. However, it back-fired and he lost the dressing room instead.
Abramovich, who is often trigger happy, and being fully aware of Mourinho’s place in Chelsea’s history, gave the special one ample time to turn it around, but after losing the locker room, he was unable to return Chelsea back to winning ways and was let go before the end of the season.
Clash Of Ideologies
The following season, Mourinho took over from his mentor Louis Van Gaal as the manager of Manchester United. His appointment as the manager at Old Trafford was a peculiar one and a massive clash of ideology. United have long been a club that has played attacking football, where stars such as David Beckham, George Best, Ryan Giggs, Bobby Charlton, Eric Cantona and Cristiano Ronaldo to name a few, have dazzled the crowd with their skills and led the team to a number of trophies.
Mourinho’s style was quite the opposite and much more pragmatic. He prioritizes winning at all costs as well as a strong defense, instead of aesthetically pleasing attacking football. The prime example of this was the 2010 treble winning Inter side.
During his first year in charge, Mourinho enjoyed decent success with Manchester United, winning the Europa League to return the team back to Champion’s League, along with winning the League Cup and the Community Shield.
However, in the second season as manager, with fluctuating form of his stars players such as Alexis Sanchez, Paul Pogba, Anthony Martial, coupled with poor league performances, led to him criticizing his players which did not sit well with the players and he lost the trust of the team.
Outdated Methods And Inability To Cope With The Changing Times
Known for his ability to establish a close relationship with his players and often criticizing them in the press to push them and get their best performances out on the pitch, it seemed as though his methods had become outdated.
This had become evident by the way his Real Madrid, Chelsea and Manchester United tenure ended, by him losing the dressing room. In days past, stars such as Lampard, Terry, Drogba, Ballack, Essien, Zanetti, Cambiasso, Milito, Ibrahimovic, Julio Cesar, Marco Materazzi all legends of the game, responded ferociously on the field to pick up their performances when the special one criticized them.
The same methods against the likes of Paul Pogba, Sergio Ramos, Iker Casillas, Eden Hazard, Diego Costa, Alexis Sanchez simply did not work. With the dominance of social media and in an age where players are not just players but brands and are valued significantly more to clubs than managers, the players hold more power and their egos are often too fragile to understand the nature in which Mourinho likes to push his players.
The philosophy that no player is bigger than the team is one which fans everywhere prefer as is desire from their team, but looking around the globe in this sport, it’s a rare concept, but one which is common among all successful clubs.
During his time at United, one of the players he was the harshest critic of, who even asked to leave, Luke Shaw, had towards the end of his tenure at United, become one of the strongest and most consistent performers. Shaw was a strong supporter of Mourinho, since he was one of the players who responded well to the Portuguese tactician’s methods, even posting on Instagram thanking Mourinho after he left the club.
In the next and final piece of this mini series, the question of who best would fulfill the needs of Inter ahead of the 2019/2020 season, will be answered.
