Awkward. Difficult. Petulant. Confrontational. All terms that could easily be used to describe Jose Mourinho’s conduct towards the media after his side’s 3-1 loss to Liverpool on Saturday.
Some of the TV interviews, particularly, made for painful viewing as the Chelsea manager gave short, surly responses and on several occasions even refused to answer questions.
This should comes as no surprise as Mourinho’s relationship with the media has often been vitriolic, not just in England, but in Italy and Spain, too.
The difference this time following his side’s defeat at Anfield – Chelsea’s sixth in 11 Premier League games this season – is he has usually been able to pick his arguments and push his agendas from a position of strength.
You have to go back to 2001-02, his debut season as a top-flight manager, when he guided Portuguese side Uniao de Leiria to seventh place in the Primeira Liga, for the last time the side he has coached has not finished in the top two.
Mourinho does not do bad seasons, at least domestically anyway, until now.
It could be argued that the former Porto, Inter Milan and Real Madrid coach has never hung around in a job long enough to see things go sour, or have to rebuild a side, with his first stint at Chelsea, between June 2004 and September 2007 his longest reign at any club.
But now, assuming the club is still giving their backing to the Portuguese, he faces the challenge of reassembling a Premier League-winning side in May that appears to have disintegrated by November.
Chelsea only lost three games in winning the title last season, but have already lost double that amount this season.
In conceding 10 goals in their first six home games of the season they have already conceded more than the paltry nine that were scored against them at Stamford Bridge in 2014/15.
Chelsea’s greatest strength last season was how tough they were to beat, let alone score against. That steel is gone, at least for now.
Players lose form, but for players of the ilk of Branislav Ivanovic, John Terry, Cesc Fabregas, Eden Hazard and Nemanja Matic to suffer such drastic drops in their playing levels would have been hard to anticipate.
Mourinho can try to direct the media and supporters in the directions of refereeing decisions going against his side as a root cause for their decline, but that is just a smokescreen. Two things will make or break Mourinho’s season: Firstly, can he help coach his players back to form and galvanise a struggling side, something he has never had to deal with before in his career.
And secondly, how worried is Roman Abramovich, the club’s owner, about not finishing in the top four and qualifying for the Uefa Champions League next season?
They are 15th in the table, but only 10 points off fourth-placed Manchester United, which is hardly insurmountable at this stage. But if results continue to elude Chelsea, and that gap to fourth grows further, that could well be the trigger for Abramovich to make a change.
The Russian’s patience is not exactly renown, and while he may well accept a failure to retain the title, or even challenge for it, not making the Champions League for the first time since 2002/03, well that does not bear thinking about if your name is Mourinho.
gcaygill@thenational.ae
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