History will remember Jose Mourinho for Chelsea, not Manchester United

Jose Mourinho’s third season at Manchester United went exactly as his third season at Chelsea did last time. He will be remembered as a Blue by history.

Three years and one day split Jose Mourinho’s last two sackings. Chelsea was trapped at the bottom of the table and Mourinho simply had no more answers. Manchester United, after years of spiraling downward and becoming more business than club, felt like the brand could no longer support Mourinho.

“Third season syndrome” is often the term used to describe this phenomenon with Mourinho. One year to build, one year to win, one year to crash. Except he never moved on from the Chelsea crash and United was a constant back and forth between building and crashing. Though he had improved results this season after an initial rut, he did so at the expense of key figures Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku. With several hesitant players shying away from contract extensions, perhaps the board felt that they had no other option left but to sack Mourinho.

Mourinho’s last three years have been a disaster. He is currently a bit of a laughing stock or pariah in the football world. No big club will want to touch him after his United stint. His reputation is now closer to Sam Allardyce’s than Pep Guardiola’s. But history will not remember that Mourinho. History will remember the Chelsea Mourinho.

Mourinho is the best manager Chelsea has ever had. Full stop. Antonio Conte, Carlo Ancelotti, and more have achieved things at Chelsea. But no other manager so transformed the club or English football itself than Mourinho.

His first stint at Chelsea was nothing short of world class. He swept Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson aside. But like most things, it came to arguments with Mourinho. He departed after bringing 4-3-3 into the Premier League.

He then did almost the same thing in Italy. He brought Inter Milan to unprecedented levels that they have not seen anything close to since. There, he began to develop his own 4-2-3-1 that would become a staple of his ever since.

Real Madrid followed where he came head to head with Pep Guardiola and the cracks began to show. Rather than continue to adapt to the game, Mourinho’s sole method became creating a system to counter Guardiola’s. It worked, mostly, but it was a fatal flaw that would only grow in the coming years.

His second Chelsea stint got better and better until a massive loss to Tottenham just after 2015 began. The attacking flair he had Chelsea playing was reigned in as the team adopted a mentality based on fear. They won the title, but the spiral had begun.

The season with Chelsea that followed had many reasons for being as bad as it was. But chief among them was Mourinho losing touch with the modern game and the modern players. His siege mentality may have worked with John Terry and Frank Lampard, but less so with Diego Costa and Eden Hazard.

Manchester United was rumored to be his “dream job” but it is hard to deny he took the job in part out of spite. He wanted revenge on Chelsea for giving up on him. But Mourinho needed the time off he did not take and he needed to go away from England, not back to it. The rut of 2015/2016 never truly ended for him and after two and a half seasons at United, the same result followed.

The tale of Mourinho will always include his time at United. But he will be remembered as the Chelsea manager that changed the game. He simply failed to change with the game. His greatest mistake may have been taking the United job but the Chelsea period will shine brightest.

Perhaps Mourinho got too big too quickly. He went from a translator at Barcelona to one of the world’s best managers in a matter of years. He missed the time to make mistakes and when he finally started to make them, he assumed it was not his own fault but others.

As for now, times are changing. Maurizio Sarri is the first manager Chelsea has brought in who is actively trying to redevelop the club’s culture that Jose Mourinho put into place. United is more a business than a club and will likely continue to operate as such.

As for Mourinho, he needs to take some time off or take a job away from Europe. Just some breathing room to either adapt to the game as it is now or find another way. Mourinho is, historically, one of history’s greatest managers. But he has to remember how he got there and how to get back to it.