I received a call on my mobile from LBC as I was leaving a matinee performance of War Horse at the New London Theatre in Covent Garden, asking if I could do an interview on the demise of Jose Mourinho a little later in the evening.
I would imagine the vast majority of Chelsea fans will recall instantly exactly where they were the moment they discovered their beloved Jose had been fired for a second and, clearly, last time as Chelsea boss. It is one of those defining moments in football fans’ lives.
I’m not a Chelsea fan, I hasten to say, but my wife Linda is and she was by my side when I broke the news to her. It came as quite a shock and she rang her family after the show, as they all hail from Chelsea.
My old Daily Mirror colleague Nick Ferrari, who is now breakfast presenter at LBC, always likes to rustle me up when there is a major football story breaking and there has been no bigger one for quite some time than the sacking just before Christmas of Jose Mourinho.
More pertinently, I just happen to be Jose Mourinho’s ‘biographer’, having written a series of books for publishers John Blake on this very intriguing and complex character, who never ceases to amaze, confuse and enlighten in equal measure.
Ironically, the latest volume was due to be published in late October/early November but, two months prior to the publication date, on consultation with the publishers, it was decided to put the book on hold ‘pending his sacking’ from Chelsea.
The rationale was that, with the team doing so badly, the celebration of winning the title had already evaporated and a vastly different mood – a black mood – had descended on the Bridge: not a particularly good time to bring out a book to glory in Mourinho’s achievements at Chelsea. But I reasoned that a very good time would be a couple of months later as, inevitably, he would be sacked.
I also write a column for a website, Zapsportz.com, of which I share joint ownership with Glenn Hoddle and in which I had been predicting Mourinho’s sacking for some time. Then, in aftermath of the defeat at Leicester City, I had confidently predicted that he would get ‘the boot’ in social- media postings, for a PR project I’d been working on for a new football boot: the Serafino 4th Edge boot.
All fascinating stuff for LBC to get their teeth into when I arrived back at the Millennium Hotel, Mayfair, where there was a clear line for an uninterrupted five-minute slot to discuss the ins and outs of the Mourinho sacking.
Having confidently predicted for several weeks that he would get the bullet, I was not unduly surprised when the final shot was fired and LBC wanted to know why.
Jose is either loved or hated in equal measure wherever he goes but the outpouring of emotion from Chelsea fans at the decision to kick him out of the door, despite being the most successful manager in the club’s history, was something quite special, even by the Special One’s standards.
When I was interviewed on LBC, I commented: “Managers are judged by results; it is a results-based industry – and results have been pathetic. So you sack the manager, irrespective of his former glories. He has taken Chelsea from champions to one point above the drop zone. If it was any other manager, you would have very little sympathy for him.”
Chelsea lost nine of sixteen Premier League matches at the start of what turned out to be a shambolic season and, while the manager was accused of ‘losing the dressing room’, this, in my view, is a cop-out.
Mourinho, though, did overstep the mark when he claimed he had been ‘betrayed’ by his players, which he voiced before the game with Leicester City, for, by that point, the Chelsea board had had enough of his latest antics.
The attitude of the players stank and the fans could smell it. In fact, the supporters had already let some of the players know what they thought of them, booing them off at half-time or at the end, a condemnation of them more than the manager.
From champions only a few months earlier, their form had been pathetically poor – poor in the extreme – and Mourinho was right to feel let down.
Mourinho was proud of winning the title again – and with such a depleted squad – but he must have known that delaying pre-season to give players a long rest was a risk. However, not signing top-class players was an even bigger one.
Mourinho delivered his wish list of players he wanted for the new season but there was a lack of urgency in recruitment; an over-confident attitude of, ‘as champions, perhaps we don’t need a major overhaul of players.’ In reality, they did. They failed to do so, from a mixture of reluctance to pay over- inflated prices, or of the big clubs like Real Madrid to sell the players Mourinho wanted.
Having signed a four-year deal that ended any insecurity issues – so he thought – who would have thought it would be four months, not four years, before Mourinho and Abramovich would be parting company again?
JOSE: FAREWELL TO THE KING IS PUBLISHED BY BLAKE BOOKS ON THURSDAY WITH A CELEBRITY LAUNCH AT TABLESPOON IN SUNNINGDALE ON FRIDAY
I would imagine the vast majority of Chelsea fans will recall instantly exactly where they were the moment they discovered their beloved Jose had been fired for a second and, clearly, last time as Chelsea boss. It is one of those defining moments in football fans’ lives.
I’m not a Chelsea fan, I hasten to say, but my wife Linda is and she was by my side when I broke the news to her. It came as quite a shock and she rang her family after the show, as they all hail from Chelsea.
My old Daily Mirror colleague Nick Ferrari, who is now breakfast presenter at LBC, always likes to rustle me up when there is a major football story breaking and there has been no bigger one for quite some time than the sacking just before Christmas of Jose Mourinho.
More pertinently, I just happen to be Jose Mourinho’s ‘biographer’, having written a series of books for publishers John Blake on this very intriguing and complex character, who never ceases to amaze, confuse and enlighten in equal measure.
Ironically, the latest volume was due to be published in late October/early November but, two months prior to the publication date, on consultation with the publishers, it was decided to put the book on hold ‘pending his sacking’ from Chelsea.
The rationale was that, with the team doing so badly, the celebration of winning the title had already evaporated and a vastly different mood – a black mood – had descended on the Bridge: not a particularly good time to bring out a book to glory in Mourinho’s achievements at Chelsea. But I reasoned that a very good time would be a couple of months later as, inevitably, he would be sacked.
I also write a column for a website, Zapsportz.com, of which I share joint ownership with Glenn Hoddle and in which I had been predicting Mourinho’s sacking for some time. Then, in aftermath of the defeat at Leicester City, I had confidently predicted that he would get ‘the boot’ in social- media postings, for a PR project I’d been working on for a new football boot: the Serafino 4th Edge boot.
All fascinating stuff for LBC to get their teeth into when I arrived back at the Millennium Hotel, Mayfair, where there was a clear line for an uninterrupted five-minute slot to discuss the ins and outs of the Mourinho sacking.
Having confidently predicted for several weeks that he would get the bullet, I was not unduly surprised when the final shot was fired and LBC wanted to know why.
Jose is either loved or hated in equal measure wherever he goes but the outpouring of emotion from Chelsea fans at the decision to kick him out of the door, despite being the most successful manager in the club’s history, was something quite special, even by the Special One’s standards.
When I was interviewed on LBC, I commented: “Managers are judged by results; it is a results-based industry – and results have been pathetic. So you sack the manager, irrespective of his former glories. He has taken Chelsea from champions to one point above the drop zone. If it was any other manager, you would have very little sympathy for him.”
Chelsea lost nine of sixteen Premier League matches at the start of what turned out to be a shambolic season and, while the manager was accused of ‘losing the dressing room’, this, in my view, is a cop-out.
Mourinho, though, did overstep the mark when he claimed he had been ‘betrayed’ by his players, which he voiced before the game with Leicester City, for, by that point, the Chelsea board had had enough of his latest antics.
The attitude of the players stank and the fans could smell it. In fact, the supporters had already let some of the players know what they thought of them, booing them off at half-time or at the end, a condemnation of them more than the manager.
From champions only a few months earlier, their form had been pathetically poor – poor in the extreme – and Mourinho was right to feel let down.
Mourinho was proud of winning the title again – and with such a depleted squad – but he must have known that delaying pre-season to give players a long rest was a risk. However, not signing top-class players was an even bigger one.
Mourinho delivered his wish list of players he wanted for the new season but there was a lack of urgency in recruitment; an over-confident attitude of, ‘as champions, perhaps we don’t need a major overhaul of players.’ In reality, they did. They failed to do so, from a mixture of reluctance to pay over- inflated prices, or of the big clubs like Real Madrid to sell the players Mourinho wanted.
Having signed a four-year deal that ended any insecurity issues – so he thought – who would have thought it would be four months, not four years, before Mourinho and Abramovich would be parting company again?
JOSE: FAREWELL TO THE KING IS PUBLISHED BY BLAKE BOOKS ON THURSDAY WITH A CELEBRITY LAUNCH AT TABLESPOON IN SUNNINGDALE ON FRIDAY
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