My Tribute To Jose Mourinho

The only news that matters to me at the moment is Jose Mourinho leaving Chelsea. This is great news for Liverpool as it means it can be a straight out two-way fight for the Premiership between us and United. Other than that it’s a sad day for English football.

I like Jose a lot and thought he was a refreshing, charismatic face for football here. It’s a really bad move for Chelsea as unless they bring in an ace coach then they’ll not make the most of what they’ve got. The jury’s out for Avram Grant but it would take a whole lot of convincing for anyone to forget the impact of the Special One.

Along with Tottenham’s plight, as an onlooker this makes for interesting football in seeing how things change. New eras tend to mean a time of bedding in then a team in the manager’s image. Interesting to see what that means for Terry and Lampard who appeared to be big fans of Mourinho. For the latter especially I’d sit tight on contract negotiations until after Christmas, maybe even wait until the end of the season. So which players will be in and which would be out? What team selection and system would be favoured? That’s all the fun of these developments.

In all this though I truly wish Jose Mourinho the very best in what he goes onto. He has not been faultless however twisted the media agenda may have been. Perchance some of his statements were not of the humility that I associate with truly great people, but his record cannot be denied and to me his brand of football was the most effective in all areas that I’ve seen in my lifetime. Arguably the only club football I saw that matched that level of efficiency across the pitch – attacking and defending – was the AC Milan of Guillit, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Baresi and Maldini.

Some pundits think that football is about the players but to me men like Mourinho, Ferguson, Wenger, Capello, Hiddink, Trapattoni and their ilk prove that great managers and coaches have as much to say on the team selected, style of play and sheer force of personality that an inspirational leader, motivator and manager can bring to the whole set up.

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