FYI Ini artikel dari Daily Mirror
The Chelsea players began to sense that the end of an era was approaching fast at the start of this season. In isolated meetings with players, Roman Abramovich openly criticised Jose Mourinho and his methods. In particular, Abramovich expressed his discontent with his coach's man-management skills. It became increasingly obvious to those who listened that it was only a matter of time until the man who had brought Chelsea their first league title for 50 years walked out of Stamford Bridge. There were other significant changes that told the squad tensions were reaching boiling point. Players were no longer able to read the newspapers at the club's Cobham training ground. They were no longer allowed to take their families there either. And they noticed that often, when they came off the pitch at the end of training, the club's new director of football, Avram Grant, would be waiting for them. Grant, appointed by Abramovich in direct opposition to Mourinho's wishes, pumped the players for information about whether they were satisfied with the training sessions. They found his questions irritating and blatantly undermining to the manager. Only the timing of his exit came as a surprise, so close to Chelsea's clash with Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday. But it has always been obvious that when Mourinho left the club, he would leave with a bang and not a whimper. His departure will leave a huge vacuum at Chelsea and it will also deprive the Premier League of the man who had joined Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger as its dominant figures. Mourinho, with his arrogance and his self-assurance and his incendiary temperament, was very much the new face of English football. He stamped his personality on the club, too. He was admired but not loved. And so was his team. Chelsea took over from Manchester United as the club other fans loved to hate. That was down to Jose. He personified the 'me generation' of managers and players, men who seemed to have wrested power away from the old football elites in the boardroom. He nurtured his own sense of self importance. He was never wrong. He promoted a cult of infallibility around himself and his players. And they were impressed by his confidence. They liked it when he arrived at Stamford Bridge and waved his European Cup winners' medal at them in his first proper team talk. He told them that he was a winner and they were not. He told them that he could turn them into someone like him and they bought into everything he said. And Mourinho took them to the promised land. He took men who had not won anything before, men like Frank Lampard and John Terry, and turned them into winners. He turned Terry and Lampard into two of the best players in England, too. He made them the backbone of his side and the backbone of the England team. But even though Chelsea won the title a second time, success in Europe eluded them and Abramovich grew dissatisfied with their failure to develop and progress. He grew tired of the spoilt-child act and Mourinhoýs sense of entitlement. And in the end, his patience snapped. Ferguson could tell Mourinho a thing or two about getting into arguments with very rich men. Don't do it, would be the advice he could have passed on. A couple of years ago, Fergie likened his new rival to the newest gunslinger in town. Fergie ýs still standing but the gunslinger just got shot down. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
