Fake stories, style and challenges: What Jose Mourinho has in store
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho (Centre)
The Stories
Since the match against Aston Villa back in August, Chelsea became a club in crisis and were back on track in a span of 3 weeks according to some extraordinary news outlets in Britain.
The run of 4 games without a win early in the season became a feast for modern day journalists, throwing light on the sanctity of their profession. It is flabbergasting at times, but one has to live with it, thanks to the ever changing trends in fan culture and social media.
The whitewash result at the Etihad Stadium last Sunday, shifted the focus from Chelsea to Manchester United to some extent, but whatever maybe the problem for these big clubs at the start of the season, they always end up performing well as the months pass by.
The amount of concocted stories the media is churning out has reached alarming levels. The latest development at Chelsea that has been getting a lot of media attention is the situation of Juan Mata.
Jose Mourinho is renowned as a press favourite, for his direct and stern approach. His open challenges towards some of the players have unsettled a large section of Chelsea fans, bringing about a wide magnitude of speculation on the futures of these players. While it might be farcical to assume anything this early in the season, the amount of baseless, concocted stories coming out from various news outlets are making a significant impact on the thinking of the fans worldwide.
This applies not only to Chelsea, but for every club and their fan base. The situation involving Mata is nowhere close to that of Iker Casillas last season and it would be too early to read between the lines this time around.
The Matches
Keeping our focus on Chelsea, those four no-win games have been the result of Mourinho experimenting to find the perfect starting XI, capable of dominating games in a ruthless fashion. The scorelines in the eight games Chelsea have played till now suggest one interesting thing; not more than two goals were scored by the Blues in any game.
This can attributed to the persistence of Mourinho to start Samuel Eto’o ahead of Fernando Torres in the league.
Statistics from Squawka.com show that Eto’o has been much more intelligent in his off-the-ball movement than Torres, but the Spaniard has more goals and has been sidelined after the arrival of Eto’o. In three starts, Torres scored two goals while Eto’o hasn’t opened his Chelsea account in three starts.
The loaning of Romelu Lukaku to Everton might have been a surprising, irritating development for the fans, but Mourinho usually tends to think ahead and knows his trade well.
The striking duo must fire in goals, else they might be shipped out at the end of the season.
After the four game barren spell, the subsequent wins against Fulham and Swindon have set the tone for the next set of matches, away to Spurs, Bucharest and Norwich before the international break kicks in.
The squad though has been considerably thinned in the midfield section after Marco van Ginkel and Ramires got injured during the game against Swindon. It has been confirmed that van Ginkel suffered a cruciate ligament injury and might not be featuring for Chelsea until next July. It is cruel, but that’s what League Cup games do to you – hollow up the squads.
Mourinho had grand plans for the Dutchman. Touted as the replacement for Frank Lampard in the box-to-box role, this was the year for van Ginkel to gradually phase himself into the team. This unexpected development leaves Chelsea with four midfielders vying for either two or three starting spots, with David Luiz and Kevin de Bruyne capable of a rare shift in the mid.