A very special article: Jose Mourinho is not Chelsea’s to own

Jose Mourinho is now the Tottenham Hotspur manager and that is a real sentence in the English language. But he also is not Chelsea’s to own.

Long ago, Roman Abramovich had narrowed his search to two clubs after “You’ll Never Walk Alone” sung on a Liverpool Champions League night convinced him to buy a club. Ultimately, the reason why he chose Chelsea over Tottenham varies person to person but the end result is the same. He pumps money into the club, hires Jose Mourinho, and suddenly a new club is formed out of the framework of the old.

Make no mistake; the Chelsea way was built under Mourinho. It continued through manager after manager and was there again when he returned. But if there could be a day where things started to go wrong for Mourinho, it was New Year’s Day 2015 when Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham announced themselves to the world as genuineness contenders with a 5-3 thumping of the Blues. The Blues adopted more conservative tactics afterwards and won the title but the downfall had begun.

Almost five years later and Pochettino has been sacked by Spurs. Shockingly, Mourinho is in. Blues fans are understandably conflicted about a man who did so much for the club taking over a rival in the same city. But Mourinho never was Chelsea’s to own.

The dam was already broken when Mourinho took over at Manchester United. A few months prior, he spoke about the players betraying his work. It certainly felt like he took the United job less out of desire and more out of spite. It felt like a betrayal of his work so soon after the sacking.

But Chelsea had sacked Mourinho twice. Whatever loyalty he had towards the club (and make no mistake, he does have it) had long since gone. Mourinho is at the end of the day a professional. And like any player, he only has one career to make the most of. Rivalries fall to the wayside in that event.

That does not have to make it okay but fans cannot pretend like Mourinho had to keep stalling his career until a club Chelsea approved of came along. It has been interesting to see the shift from “how dare Jody Morris laugh at this man?” to “Mourinho is not proper Chelsea” in about a week’s time.

Mourinho built Chelsea but he is not owned by Chelsea. The club tried to make it work with him twice. Some fans even wanted a third chance. Managers going to rival clubs is a thing that happens much more commonly abroad but that does not mean the world ends in England.

Mourinho is still a Chelsea legend. No job will take that away from him. He is the Tottenham Hotspur manager now and that means the same as it does for any rival; hope he fails and laugh as it happens. But when the dust has settled, he will still be Chelsea. 22 December can serve as a day for Mourinho to be remembered. And the best way to do so will be to smash his side into the ground with the new Frank Lampard Chelsea way (while also hoping the inevitable Morris-Mourinho bust up is not too bad).