When Jose Mourinho first came to England, he labelled himself “special”. With an extra few hundred million, he turned the 2nd place finishing and CL semi-final reaching side in to a 1st place finishing and…CL semi-final reaching side.
The total spent on players since Roman Abromovich came to Chelsea is around the £600 million mark, with Jose Mourinho spending the majority of that. With that money he has signed players such as Drogba, Carvalho, Mikel, Essien, Shevchenko etc. Those five players alone add up to a whopping £115 million!
Now, with less than half the season to go, Jose has found his side six points behind Manchester United, a team who were labelled to be “in decline” just twelve months ago.
After drawing two home games in a row, and conceding eight goals in four games, Mourinho has spoken out about the situation. “I am disappointed because we didn’t get the result we wanted, but not so disappointed because it is not a big surprise for me,” he said. “Everybody knows in this moment that Chelsea cannot defend. I am the first one to know that. Maybe we are not as good as we think, maybe I am not such a good manager, maybe the players are not such good players. It is exactly the opposite of previous times for us. Teams knew they couldn’t score against us and we could dominate matches, now they know they can.”
Chelsea are currently without Cech, Robben, Terry and J Cole, and whilst Robben and Cole have been absent from the first team the majority of the season, due to injury and team selection, Chelsea are currently suffering under the absence of Terry and Cech. Spurs, Middlesborough, Manchester City, Everton, Villa, Reading, Fulham, Arsenal, and Newcastle are all teams with more injuries than Chelsea… but the noteworthy fact is that no other team has even half the resources available to them as Chelsea.
Are injuries to Terry and Cech a good enough excuse for Chelsea finding themselves in the situation they are? Or is Jose right in suggesting that maybe he isn’t such a good manager? Please leave your comments below.
Without Terry, Cech and that wonderful Gallas, Chelsea is drawing too many games they could have won by 2-0 or 1-0.