Jose Mourinho, the Chosen One, leaves Blues sans a legacy

Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over selfknowledge wrote Alain de Botton in On Love We fall in love hoping we wont find in another what we know is in ourselves all the cowardice weakness laziness dishonesty compromise and stupidity We throw a cordon of love around the chosen one and decide that everything within it will somehow be free of our faultsJose Mourinho PicAFPAffair with JoseFor six years spread over two stints Jose Mourinho was that chosen one for the Stamford Bridge faithful He was the one who delivered a first championship in half a century 200405 with a record points tally and who would add two more 200506 and 201415 while also threatening the summit of the European gameThe first affair had lasted a little over three years and the parting of ways had more to do with Roman Abramovichs desire for a more cavalier expansive style than any failures on the pitch This second and surely final divorce has come about despite the once triggerhappy Russian owner showing extraordinary patienceChelsea remain alive in the Champions League mdash they do have to face a dominant Paris St Germain in the round of 16 in February mdash but the defence of the Premier League title has been abject Chances are that bookmakers wouldnt even have offered odds on last seasons runaway champions losing nine of their first 16 matchesMourinho left a club tottering a point above the relegation zone well adrift of even newly promoted Watford Any analysis of what went wrong must start with the final months of the last season Till the end of January Chelsea were irresistible There was a New Years Day thumping at the hands of Tottenham but 23 games into the season they had scored 52 goals and conceded just 20 while accumulating 53 pointsManchester City who had scored 102 goals while winning the title in 201314 were five points and six goals behind By the end of the season Chelsea had stretched the advantage to eight points but in that 15game stretch City outscored them 37 to 21 But with Arsenal floundering United rebuilding and Liverpool dealing badly with heartbreak the path to the title was still a smooth one The warning signs were there though When you assemble a squad with such quality 21 goals in 15 games really isnt an acceptable returnThe key component of the 2014 summer rebuild had been Diego Costa signed for 32 million pounds from Atletico Madrid Costas bruising physicality eccentric behaviour and range of skills had all been on show a few months earlier as Atletico played Chelsea off the park in the Champions League semifinal For a team missing a talismanic front man he seemed an obvious acquisitionThe early signs for the leagues defenders were terrifying with Costa scoring seven times in his first four matches He had managed 13 before the New Year Then as winter set in and his hamstrings started to play up the goals stopped coming so easily He finished the season with 20 in the league and then returned from his holiday noticeably overweightPlayers offcolourSo far this season Chelsea have scored 18 goals in 16 games Costas tally has been three mdash he has four yellow cards Eden Hazard Professional Footballers Association Player of the Year last season hasnt scored for Chelsea since May Cesc Fabregas has been more headless chicken than midfield general Branislav Ivanovic and John Terry have been poorWhen Mourinho spoke of betrayal mdash a horrible choice of word mdash after the defeat at Leicester you could understand where he was coming from That Leicester rant was the final straw A man who once inspired such loyalty that his players wept when he left in 2007 had been reduced to playing the blame game in publicNow there will be no dynasty In so many ways Mourinho is the modernday Beacutela Guttmann seemingly incapable of staying in a job more than three years In a feature on Mourinho in The Blizzard Jonathan Wilson wrote His Guttmanns theory was that after two seasons a coach had said everything he had to say that the style of play would become predictable that players would no longer be motivated by the familiar calls to arms that complacency and decline would inevitably set inIt happened at Chelsea this season The club can only hope that Mourinho didnt leave cursing In 1962 after winning backtoback European Cups with Benfica Guttmann went and asked for a pay hike When denied one he quit allegedly with the words Not in a hundred years from now will Benfica ever be European champion They havent won a continental trophy sinceDileep Premachandran is Wisden Indias editorinchief and has also loved the Beautiful Game since he watched the Braziliansof 1982He tweets SpiceBoxofEarth Send your feedback to sportsmiddaycom