Jose Mourinho’s End Of Season Report: How Did His Chelsea Fare?

It wasn’t meant to end in the manner it did; Jose Mourinho’s well-documented return back to Chelsea ended with empty hands. Chelsea faltered in the final hurdles; there were many positives as well as a few negatives as Mourinho completed his second successive trophyless season.

Mourinho’s own assessment of the season would be dampening at the very least; he of all people doesn’t like losing. A combination of player unavailability, fixture congestion, differing priorities, referee’s undoings among others will count among the many reasons behind a lacklustre season for Chelsea, or so would Mourinho suggest.

Going into the season with sights on five trophies, the first of those went begging against Bayern Munich in the European Super Cup where Chelsea lost in a penalty shootout. The Premier League, UEFA Champions League, the FA Cup and the Capital One Cup remained in the wait; and prioritising them was to become Mourinho’s prime job.

Transfer business was typical Chelsea; big bucks spent and big players came in through the gates. The well-known talents of Willian, Andre Schurrle and Marco van Ginkel were signed, although the bigger fish in Wayne Rooney couldn’t be tempted and swayed to East London. Samuel Eto’o was brought on as the stop-gap striker, while the future of Juan Mata looked bleak by the day. He was finally offloaded to rivals Manchester United in January, and the club used up the funds to sign Benfica’s combative midfielder Nemanja Matic and FC Basel’s star winger Mohamed Salah. The bigger targets were missed, but those coming in were considered adequate enough to challenge on all fronts. Mourinho showed how business could also be done in January as Chelsea were by far the busiest club in the winter transfer market. Satisfying deals on paper, but they all proved to fetch a nought in the immediate short-term.

With Mourinho on board, the talks of yore about his style of football resurfaced. Having been back from a season of despair at Real Madrid where his authority proved to be the bane, Mourinho aimed at being a calming persona, a far cry from his ‘Special One’ days. And the fact that his old guard didn’t remain the same as he left them six years ago made for a job far too difficult than it seemed. There was no questioning the superlative attacking wealth Chelsea possessed, but Mourinho wasn’t going to kick matters off without stamping his own authority. John Terry, a peripheral figure at large in Rafa Benitez’s short stint towards the end of the season previous, returned back to the fore. David Luiz and Juan Mata weren’t in his first line of sight, and he had a particular dislike for his bunch of forwards. It was as if he wanted Eden Hazard to be the Cristiano Ronaldo of his side, although he failed to grasp the significant inexperience and youth of Hazard.

Chelsea remained in fine hands throughout the season; eking out results with poor days few and far between and hiccupped before cruising through an easy group in the continent. Chelsea generally kept good pace with the leaders, and got their due results when mattered. And their streak at the Bridge remained intact, although an unlucky West Brom came close to breaking through the ceiling. Mourinho masterminded doubles over both Manchester City and Liverpool, and those wins proved the only tokens of achievement in an otherwise underwhelming season for Chelsea.

Their European sojourn was halted by Atletico Madrid; the Spanish upstarts crashed through the party at Stamford Bridge to condemn Mourinho to one of his worst ever European defeats. The fact about Mourinho being strategically sound was thrown out of the window as Atletico ran away 3-1 aggregate victors on a night when Chelsea’s dreams for the season well and truly fell apart.

Adding more misery is the fact about a slightly off-positive brand of football employed by Mourinho in the season’s business end. Even his own players cried foul at the sort of anti-football deployed, but Mourinho is all about results. His enviable home league unbeaten record was finally torn into shreds by Sunderland, as Chelsea’s season fell apart towards the end.

Results deserted him, and he for one has had to keep his mouth unusually shut in a season of transition. Chelsea under Mourinho has shown signs of progress, albeit with no metalware to show for it. Changes are expected at the very least, and next season could be anything but similar to the one that passed by. Until then Mourinho will remain unhappy, because nothing makes him happier than winning trophies.