Odoacer at the gates
Cast your mind back if you will to 4th March 2006. A battle in more ways than one at the Hawthorns with a Chelsea side at the height of gittery (King of Divers Arjen Robben red carded for a two-footed assault on the mighty Jonathan Greening, Didier Drogba in his original incarnation before his rebirth as a modern saint) nicking a 2-1 win off the home side. Jose Mourinho also clashed with his hapless opposite number Bryan Robson although to be fair there was little actual clashing with Robson meekly backing down from the strutting Portuguese. Two things happened that day for me: (1) it confirmed in my mind that the mythical "Great Escape" had been an aberration and Robson's side were going down (2) Mourinho was a complete tosser. Up to that point I must admit I had rather enjoyed his antics in a love-to-hate kind of way. Sure, he had the devil about him but the devil in question was Mephistopheles, twirling his moustache, tipping his top hat and seducing cygnine maidens with his rakish ways. From then on he became Beelzebub, a buzzing, fussy annoyance no longer amusing on any level but rather deeply irritating.
As such the travails he now finds himself in fill me with more glee than is perhaps healthy. Not since the chaotic Leeds United side of 1992-93 have I witnessed champions make such an unholy mess of their defence of the league. Even then it doesn't really compare as Howard Wilkinson's title winners had always been rather a shock, a collection of odds and sods that somehow, against all wisdom, nicked a league title (not a million miles away from Claudio Ranieri's knockabout Leicester side, a team to whom I must doff the hat despite my personal distaste as an anti-racist and a Japanophile at Vardy) and who were undone the following year by a certain maverick's taste for a certain team-mate's certain (pre-trout) wife. No names, no pack drill. Certainly they weren't comparable to the current Chelsea side, upon which a king's ransom has been lavished by a cartoon supervillain in pursuit of kudos.
All poetic justice, of course, for his treatment of the daphnean Eva Carneiro, a woman hung out to dry by the ever hubristic Mourinho who at the same time sent the message to his players that the possibility of a permanent brain injury for one of their number was of less import to him than a result in a routine league match. That in the course of doing what she was there for a woman should be so publicly humiliated by Mourinho means that he deserves all he has coming to him. With her untamed hair and dark eyes she may look the sort of lady to draw a dagger from her garter and plunge it into the weasel's black heart, her bosom burning with a fiery passion that no mere man can cool (steady on, old chap, you're getting carried away) but back in the real world she was always within her rights and her treatment appears to have dampened morale considerably in an already out of sorts squad.
Beyond that remains the éminence grise of John Terry, a figure every bit as malevolent as Mourinho but possibly even more influential than the self-appointed Special One. In times gone by when Terry was at Mourinho's shoulder it all went swimmingly but now that he is slowly being sidelined he re-emerges as a dangerous internal check to Mourinho's power, filling the last days of Steven Gerrard role to Mourinho's Brendan Rodgers. With players out of sorts, frustrated and disinterested, Mourinho no longer has his captain to call upon in order to do his dirty work, leaving him looking increasingly lost. Mourinho has defended the indefensible manys a time where Terry was concerned but now the relationship looks dead in the water and in the power struggle that ensues Mourinho might well prove the casualty. And it couldn't happen to a nicer fellow.
Despite their plastic nature, that putrid core of National Front and Combat 18 boneheads that have always infested their support, the loyalist connections, Abramovich, Terry and the rest I don't necessarily hate Chelsea as an entity. When erudite lounge lizard Carlo Ancelotti took them to the double I had no issue with their success and indeed was glad to see Ferguson's lot being put in their place for a change. But with Mourinho in charge they just tip over into the realms of pure diabolical evil and as such I wish them all the failure in the world. As such, to witness the crumbling of the empire as Mourinho enters his Romulus Augustus phase is a joy indeed, with the Special One left looking terribly normal and his expensively assembled rabble of individuals being made to look as nothing. Joy of joys and long may it continue.
As such the travails he now finds himself in fill me with more glee than is perhaps healthy. Not since the chaotic Leeds United side of 1992-93 have I witnessed champions make such an unholy mess of their defence of the league. Even then it doesn't really compare as Howard Wilkinson's title winners had always been rather a shock, a collection of odds and sods that somehow, against all wisdom, nicked a league title (not a million miles away from Claudio Ranieri's knockabout Leicester side, a team to whom I must doff the hat despite my personal distaste as an anti-racist and a Japanophile at Vardy) and who were undone the following year by a certain maverick's taste for a certain team-mate's certain (pre-trout) wife. No names, no pack drill. Certainly they weren't comparable to the current Chelsea side, upon which a king's ransom has been lavished by a cartoon supervillain in pursuit of kudos.
All poetic justice, of course, for his treatment of the daphnean Eva Carneiro, a woman hung out to dry by the ever hubristic Mourinho who at the same time sent the message to his players that the possibility of a permanent brain injury for one of their number was of less import to him than a result in a routine league match. That in the course of doing what she was there for a woman should be so publicly humiliated by Mourinho means that he deserves all he has coming to him. With her untamed hair and dark eyes she may look the sort of lady to draw a dagger from her garter and plunge it into the weasel's black heart, her bosom burning with a fiery passion that no mere man can cool (steady on, old chap, you're getting carried away) but back in the real world she was always within her rights and her treatment appears to have dampened morale considerably in an already out of sorts squad.
Beyond that remains the éminence grise of John Terry, a figure every bit as malevolent as Mourinho but possibly even more influential than the self-appointed Special One. In times gone by when Terry was at Mourinho's shoulder it all went swimmingly but now that he is slowly being sidelined he re-emerges as a dangerous internal check to Mourinho's power, filling the last days of Steven Gerrard role to Mourinho's Brendan Rodgers. With players out of sorts, frustrated and disinterested, Mourinho no longer has his captain to call upon in order to do his dirty work, leaving him looking increasingly lost. Mourinho has defended the indefensible manys a time where Terry was concerned but now the relationship looks dead in the water and in the power struggle that ensues Mourinho might well prove the casualty. And it couldn't happen to a nicer fellow.
Despite their plastic nature, that putrid core of National Front and Combat 18 boneheads that have always infested their support, the loyalist connections, Abramovich, Terry and the rest I don't necessarily hate Chelsea as an entity. When erudite lounge lizard Carlo Ancelotti took them to the double I had no issue with their success and indeed was glad to see Ferguson's lot being put in their place for a change. But with Mourinho in charge they just tip over into the realms of pure diabolical evil and as such I wish them all the failure in the world. As such, to witness the crumbling of the empire as Mourinho enters his Romulus Augustus phase is a joy indeed, with the Special One left looking terribly normal and his expensively assembled rabble of individuals being made to look as nothing. Joy of joys and long may it continue.