Such Fun as Miranda Hart would say. Seriously if put all these ingredients together, you will get the most epic TV. Put on the most charismatic and opinionated manager in the game, less than 24 hours after his team had been screwed by a series of terrible decisions, throw in the fact the company Sky got both barrels over their handing of the Diego Costa ‘stamp’ in the Liverpool Carling Cup semi-final, then sprinkle in a bit of fairy dust in the form of two presenters, neither of whom have a journalistic background and aren’t used to teasing out answers from a hostile guest and you’ve got the makings of a tremendous bit of television and boy we were treated to it. This isn’t a knock on either presenter but handling a Jose in full flow is not something for the faint-hearted.
After sitting in silence for a good minute or so, you could see the brain ticking over inside the Chelsea managers head and then he metaphorically went ‘fuck it’ and just went for it. He was good to pull back from the ‘conspiracy’ instead saying that referees have just consistently been shocking in Chelsea games but the fun part was yet to come.
Jose turned his focus and ire firmly on Sky as a company and it was beautiful. I’m a Sky guy and I have had Sky television for well over a decade now and think their coverage of sport is first rate but to see a manager, on their own channel just fire shots at them left, right and center over the Diego Costa/Liverpool incident and the language the pundits used that night (his real issue seemed to be the use of the word ‘criminal’) and the fact they’ve not used that term with regards to any other challenge, that seemed to rile him somewhat.
The Portuguese manager then reeled off a series of challenges that were just as bad as that one was, that received far less media coverage. Heck even yesterday’s potential leg breaker by Ashley Barnes on Matic (that Jose described, maybe not unfairly as a potential career ender) hasn’t been discussed half as much as the Costa incident, everyone seems to just agree that it was a horrible challenge but the outrage isn’t there.
I haven’t seen anyone call for him to be banned retrospectively, maybe the pundits and reporters just think that is just a given. Even on Sunday Supplement they all just agreed it was a terrible challenge and instead spent the time discussing how they can help referees whereas when the Costa incident happened, they discussed it in depth and how bad of a boy Costa was.
Jose though is just full value and is a joy to watch. I know some reporters are getting annoyed as his antics but he’s tremendous for us at home. He gives us something to talk about and is just fun. He’s still going and is now talking about how Arsene Wenger has a dream job and how he doesn’t understand how they aren’t challenging for the league. Brilliant!
This episode needs to win awards with the sub-title ‘Jose Mourinho Unplugged’ – interestingly enough, this episode went up against the very heavily trailed ‘Fletch & Sav’ with Russell Brand and Gazza. I think we all know what was the best to watch and I’ll give you a clue, it was the episode without the man whose going to take down the government and change politics in his eyes…
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