José Mourinho is working on the reasonable assumption Chelsea have changed. “I know the history of this club,” he had conceded this month. “Every time the results are not good, there was a change of manager. But when I was contacted to come back, I was told: ‘We had so many managers, and we know you are the best.’ So I think it’s time for the club to act in a different way, to mark a position of stability, a position of trust.” Where once the default was to mobilise the lawyers with compensation packages to discuss, and turn to an interim, now the Premier League champions are supposed to be about continuity.
The vote of confidence offered to the management staff after the defeat by Southampton this month suggested that remained the case. Mourinho, who has no intention of resigning, is understood to retain support of influential members of the board, not least the director Marina Granovskaia, who was instrumental in his original reappointment. There is no real appetite for change among the hierarchy given that, only five months ago, the Portuguese had claimed his third Premier League title for the club.
Yet Chelsea find themselves in uncharted territory. For all their improved display in departing the Capital One Cup at Stoke City on Tuesday, Chelsea are 15th in the Premier League with five losses from 10 games. Liverpool visit Stamford Bridge on Saturday in a fixture that will again test the team’s ability to revive their campaign. No side have recovered from a points tally this low at this stage to qualify for the following season’s Champions League. They are a squad flirting with disaster.
And then there is that unnerving history of mid-season upheaval. Retreat into the recent past, not least when Mourinho’s relationship with the owner, Roman Abramovich, fractured back in 2006-07, and the sight of the London club languishing even slightly off the pace would render the manager’s position increasingly untenable. Roberto Di Matteo, André Villas-Boas and Luiz Felipe Scolari were dismissed with their team – albeit sides benefiting from the strong and influential backbone established properly by Mourinho during his first spell in charge – hovering on the fringes of the title race. The current crop are 11 points adrift of the summit.
The scenario is very different these days. This Chelsea side lack the experienced core of previous teams, sides crammed with big characters who responded to managerial upheaval by reimposing some order on ailing campaigns. The manager in the centre of the storm is an established winner at the club he calls home. But if results continue to stagnate this time around, might the hierarchy not be tempted to consider how mid-season change instigated an upturn of sorts on previous occasions?
The scenario The Portuguese had delivered a first league title in half a century, and followed it up with another, and had claimed the FA Cup and League Cup the previous season. Yet tension had been mounting behind the scenes over that third season, his relationship with Abramovich increasingly fractious. There were ructions over the roles afforded to Frank Arnesen as the club’s head of youth development, and Avram Grant as a director of football. The latter’s appointment had initially been opposed by Mourinho. Similar disagreements had flared over transfer policy, with Mourinho having been denied the centre-half he had thought was necessary to maintain a title challenge. He had claimed to be “mellow Mourinho” on the pre-season tour of the United States, but talk of reconciliation with the owner was a facade. The hierarchy were infuriated that Mourinho acted as if he owned the club and, with Chelsea fifth but only two points off the top and six games into the new campaign, he was sacked after a disappointing Champions League draw against Rosenborg.
How it panned out Grant, a close ally of the owner, took over and lost his first game at Manchester United, but would only lose one more in his 32 Premier League matches in charge. Furthermore, Chelsea finally overcame their hoodoo against Rafael Benítez’s Liverpool in the Champions League to reach the final, where they lost on penalties to United. Yet, while Grant did enough to earn himself a three-and-a-half-year contract as manager, the sense lingered that strong characters in the dressing room were propelling the team rather than leadership from on high. He was offered his previous role as a director of football in the wake of the loss in Moscow, but refused. He lasted eight months in the job.
Where they finished Second in the Premier League, beaten finalists in the League Cup and the Champions League.
The scenario The World Cup-winning Brazilian had been appointed amid much fanfare during the previous summer’s European Championship but ended up lasting barely seven months in the position. Scolari never really got to grips with club management in the Premier League. Frank Lampard and John Terry requested more intensity in training and others within the squad were far more deeply sceptical about his methods. He may not have been helped by an inability to master the language, and pointed to a lack of investment in the transfer market as a mitigating factor. The final straw was a goalless home draw with Hull City, which left Chelsea with only six wins in 13 matches at Stamford Bridge and, while fourth and still in the FA Cup and Champions League, a distant seven points from the leaders. Yet Terry’s subsequent admission that only “two or three players” shared his own support for the manager seemed telling, suggesting Scolari had lost the faith of the vast majority.
How it panned out Abramovich turned to Guus Hiddink, coaching the Russia national side at the time, as an interim replacement with the Dutchman taking on a dual role for the remainder of the season. His experience and approach served to galvanise the dressing room, with Chelsea losing only once in 23 matches under his stewardship. There was frustration in the Champions League semi-finals against Barcelona, with the second leg now infamous for the performance of the Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo, but silverware in the FA Cup. The players, relishing life under the Dutchman, clubbed together to buy him a limited edition Rolex watch worth £200,000.
Where they finished Third in the Premier League, FA Cup winners, Champions League semi-finalists.
The scenario The inexperienced Villa-Boas, secured on a three-year contract worth £4.5m a season, had been charged with overhauling the London club having been prised from Porto for £13.3m in compensation in the summer of 2011. In the end, he lasted only 256 days and 40 games. The demand to conduct that revamp while maintaining challenges on all fronts had proved too much for the 34-year-old. Senior players had quickly become disaffected by his methods, the team’s performances too often flat and lacking zest, with the manager bristling at criticism from outside. As results deteriorated on the pitch, the other contenders overtook his team. They were fifth in the Premier League, and 3-1 down from the first leg of a Champions League knockout tie against Napoli where Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole had been dropped, when the axe was wielded after an anaemic 1-0 loss at West Bromwich Albion. The board, along with the owner, were unanimous in their belief that Villas-Boas could not turn the campaign around.
How it panned out The board spoke initially to Rafael Benítez about taking over on an interim basis but when the Spaniard suggested he was seeking a longer-term arrangement, turned instead to Villas-Boas’s assistant, Di Matteo, hoping the close relationship he enjoyed with the senior players might help heal some of the wounds at the club. The move did, indeed, have a restorative effect as that familiar senior core of players, so criticised by the hierarchy for their part in Villas-Boas’ failure, responded. The league form was relatively patchy, with three defeats in 11 games seeing Chelsea finish in their lowest position under Abramovich. But the FA Cup run and, most remarkably, the club’s passage to Munich and their first European Cup more than compensated.
Where they finished Sixth in the Premier League, FA Cup winners, Champions League winners.
The scenario The board had always doubted whether Di Matteo had the right level of experience to take on the position long term. It worried how he would revive them should form slump, and whether he had the tactical and strategic acumen to succeed. The owner eventually offered the Italian a two-year deal largely because it had become clear Pep Guardiola would elude him, while publicly doffing a cap to that achievement in Munich. But their concerns had resurfaced in pre-season, when they had not seen enough evidence of the team shaping up, and even with the loss of the Community Shield and the Uefa Super Cup. Some within the set-up suggested the side’s fine start to the Premier League campaign owed more to individual brilliance than sound teamwork. Then came the blip. Abramovich wanted to sack Di Matteo after another loss at West Bromwich Albion – they had won twice in seven matches at that stage, but were still third in the table – but the manager limped to Turin for a Champions League group game, dropped Fernando Torres, and effectively signed his own suicide note. The 3-0 thrashing by Juventus, a 10th game without a clean sheet, all but ensured the holders’ defence would not extend beyond the group stage. Di Matteo was sacked at 4am upon returning to the training ground, six months after winning London’s first European Cup.
How it panned out Benítez steadied the ship, ensured Chelsea were tighter defensively, and would go on to enjoy some success in the domestic cup competitions while winning the Europa League. Yet the appointment of the former Liverpool manager, whose rivalry with Mourinho a few years previously had been regular and infamous, infuriated the support and an air of disgruntled protest had tainted the entire campaign. A permanent appointment always seemed unlikely, even if Benítez had hoped he might be granted the opportunity for a while, with Mourinho’s return mooted long before the end of the campaign.
Where they finished Third in the Premier League, semi-finalists in FA Cup and League Cup, and Europa League winners.
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