Chelsea redux: Mourinho using Matic to create palpable discord at Man U
By George Perry
Chelsea fans could almost feel sorry for everyone involved with Manchester United as Jose Mourinho enters the typical end stages of his tenure. Almost, because they have no excuse for not knwoing it would go like this.
Every manager has “his players.” Sometimes they are specific individuals with whom they have found success, other times they are types of players necessary to bring the manager’s vision to life. Antonio Conte would have loved to bring Leonardo Bonucci Chelsea. Pep Guardiola needs “a” Xavi or “a” Busquets, if not the actual thing.
Jose Mourinho’s preferences are as dysfunctional as anything else about the man. He cast Juan Mata out of Chelsea, and then made him a integral part of the Manchester United squad. He seems to like having Zlatan Ibrahimovic hanging around, just because. And he can’t seem to find anyone better to be the messenger of destruction than Nemanja Matic
Nemanja Matic is Mourinho’s very own J. Walter Weatherman. Whenever Mourinho needs to teach someone a lesson, he enlists Matic to play his part in an over-elaborate scheme that shocks more than it educates.
Their relationship is among the most bizarre in football. In October 2015, Mourinho brought on Matic as a second-half substitute and withdrew him 28 minutes later. Matic later said “I felt terrible to be subbed… I am a man first of all.”
Of course, such an embarrassment was not – would never be! – Mourinho’s intent.
"It was not humiliating – I don’t do that to anyone in football or life. If I do, I do without any intention. – Evening Standard"
Luke Shaw could not be reached for comment.
Perhaps Matic is Mourinho’s greatest student. One dose of tough love was all the Serb needed not only to continue featuring in Mourinho’s Chelsea side, but for Mourinho to recruit Matic over to Manchester United, make him a stalwart of the XI and then praise him as being “an island of personality, surrounded by not water but lack of class and desire.”
Matic is playing an inadvertent (maybe? hopefully?) role in the latest Jose Mourinho drama. The next time Mourinho has another 12-minute rant in mind, he might as well hold a Matic jersey in one hand and speak to it like his Serbian Yorick.
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Mourinho’s comments are as detrimental to Nemanja Matic as they are to the rest of the team. Mourinho is not holding up Matic as an example for the rest of squad to emulate. He is using Matic as an anvil as he beats the players into… We’ll get back to you on what he thinks this will accopmlish. The players are just as likely to pass their resentment for Mourinho onto Matic as they are to respond positively to the manager. Mourinho has once again surveyed a fault line in his dressing room, and is now laying the demolition charges.
Just because Jose Mourinho is superficially praising Nemanja Matic does not change their dynamic. Matic is still the delivery vehicle for whatever Mourinho has in mind. It may be less personally embarrassing than a sub-on / sub-off, but it is no more respectful.
No one plots his own downfall quite like Jose Mourinho. Like so many other things, this iteration is different in degree but not in form. Invective, division, self-justification… just more and more caustic and more damaging. You cannot even call it collateral damage – the wreckage seems to be its own purpose, especially with only one trophy left available.
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Mourinho truly is leaving a heritage at Manchester United like those he left at Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid. If there is an upside to all this, Chelsea will no longer lose important players to a Jose Mourinho side. Anyone willing to join him after this is not smart enough for Stamford Bridge.