Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has upped the mind-games with Roman Abramovich and, for us, putting some serious weight behind the rumours that he could be leaving the club and Premiership this summer. Paving the way for a blame-free exit he said,
“If you are asking me what I want, it is to stay in England and to stay at Chelsea,” he said. “But sometimes what you want in life doesn’t happen. And if I can’t coach Chelsea, I will have to coach another team.”
Letting Mourinho leave would be pretty dumb considering he’s successfully done what many managers have failed to do at clubs like Real Madrid and Inter Milan – unite a series of high profile, expensive players into a cohesive squad willing to fight and battle for each other and the good of the club. Sure, Abramovich could roll the dice again with someone like Guus Hiddink or Fabio Capello but history has shown there’s more chance of failure than success with a Galactico-esque squad, especially with the players so firmly behind Jose. Mourinho has already harped on about how he’s the glue that keeps everything together, and there really is no way to tell how badly things could become unstuck.
It’s likely that, if the Portuguese boss leaves, the only winners in the short term will be Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal.