We need to talk about Jose. The Morinho one. Little Portuguese feller. Works for Chelsea.

And the question is: pretty much as always: is he an inspirational footballing genius with revolutionary ideas and a quite truly amazing track record, or just a moaning little tosser who only sings when he’s winning and is the stand-out worst loser in the entire history of our national game, preferring to destabilise his own team rather than accept any responsibility on his own rather pathetic little shoulders?

Is his obsession with pre-match ‘mind-games’ his greatest asset or the route to his demise?

Chelsea played PSG on Wednesday night. In case you missed that bit. They already had that precious ‘away goal’ from the first leg in Paris. So all they needed was to not lose. Or not draw at home by more than 1-all. That’s all. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently so. Because Morinho has always been rather schizophrenic in his management style. Always been 2 managers. One is the bus parker. His really true comfort zone. He first used the phrase ‘to park the bus’ in accusation of others (see; bad loser, above). Yet from his early managerial days at Porto he has consistently been guilty of doing just that. Piling on a massed defence and hoping to score the odd goal on the break, never compromising the strength in numbers staying deep. The other manager is the creative one. The one who has at his disposal the best players that dirty Russian laundered money can buy and he lets them run wild and free. Eden Hazard, Diego Costa, Willian, Cesc Fabregas. Oscar…

So playing at home and starting at 1-1 for the second leg gives Morinho a problem. Do you defend the ‘lead’ that the away goal bestows upon you? Or go for broke and actually try to win the game, put the tie to bed, but leaving inevitable holes if you do??

Before the game there has to be the inevitable mind-fuck session with Jose accusing everyone from opponents to referees, from schedules to conspiracy theories, of bias against his players. And then there’s the culture of ‘gamesmanship’. Which is very different from cheating. In that what WE do is gamesmanship, what THEY do is cheating. Ahhhhh, now I see.

So Chelsea get Zlatan Ibrahimovic sent off after a tackle on Oscar in which the skanky little Brazilian lived up to his name with the performance. Then all the Chelsea players, as they always do, mug the referee into sending the opponent off. They always try. John Terry’s protestations that ‘he was just being the peacemaker and all the rest of his boys followed’ is as pathetic as it is transparent.

Ok, PSG down to 10 men; we can just sit back and relax, other than a few cursory forays and a hell of a lot of ‘gamesmanship’.

Didn’t work. They drew 2-all. Away goals still counted double, so Chelsea go out of the Champions League and Morinho immediately blames his lacklustre players.

Chelsea are still horrible. Morinho’s still a tosser. Plus ca change.

Happy Friday

A xxxx