Chelsea

[Shaggy]

[Arn]

Mourinho have really burnt his bridges in Spain and the Spanish top class players will simply IMO never respect him.

He will find it almost impossible to sign a top class Spanish player and the Spanish players already in the squad will never respect him.

IMO.

I also believe that Mata will be sold.

[Gibbo]

I thought it was Torres.

[RichC]

If Chelsea don't hit the ground running you can imagine problems within the squad manifesting themselves very quickly.

[Darkon]

The reason why Mourinho is selling Mata and Luiz have nothing to do with him not rating their footballing qualities, it's all about reacreating the old hierachy and the one he wants. Can't have power struggles and internal fighting in a team, ruins the chances of trophies as the last season in Madrid showed well. At least that's what I reckon. Mourinho have always been a manager about team spirit and getting a squad to fight for a higher common goal, and he needs to get the Chelsea squad in order to do so.

[Alex]

I think people are going a little to far in their dislike of the guy here in respect to his ability as a manager.

He has only really failed at Madrid, even then he still won the league against the best side to have played football in the last 20 years.

Think he will do well, but he needs his own players in, he can't seem to work unless he has his Generals.

[RichC]

He employs a siege mentality approach to football, it didn't work at Madrid in the end and I'm not sure how easy its going to be to recreate it again at Chelsea where the players he had in that mold have either moved on or are ageing.

It will certainly be interesting to see what happens there and how the egos of Cole and Terry are managed within it all as I he'll need both of them 100% onside or to move them on IMO anyway

[Alex]

You would imagine that those 2 were some of the players campaigning for his return. They and Lampard are his old guard.

[RichC]

They are but how much longer do they have in the tank ?

[Darkon]

I actually think it's slightly unfair to call him unsuccesfull at Madris at a whole. Got them at the highest ever point score 2 season in a row, scored more than a 100 goals in the first two season and managed to win 1 league title, 2 runners up in league, 1 domestic cup and 1 other final, 1 super cup and 3 CL semi finals - I mean at ANY other club that would have been fantastic record in 3 years. Just happened to be competing against the best playing team that I can ever recall.

I would have been extatic if we had that in our past three years or in the next three... Don't want Mourinho near our club though

[Neil Young]

His remit was to win the league, win the Champions League and put Madrid back above Barcelona. One out of three AND a massive split in the dressing room. I'd call that failure.

[Imy]

Mata?

I thought it was Torres.

Luiz imo, Mata and Torres don't look the type that would rock the boat.

[Exiled_red]

I actually think it's slightly unfair to call him unsuccesfull at Madris at a whole. Got them at the highest ever point score 2 season in a row, scored more than a 100 goals in the first two season and managed to win 1 league title, 2 runners up in league, 1 domestic cup and 1 other final, 1 super cup and 3 CL semi finals - I mean at ANY other club that would have been fantastic record in 3 years. Just happened to be competing against the best playing team that I can ever recall.

I would have been extatic if we had that in our past three years or in the next three... Don't want Mourinho near our club though

While I can see what you are saying coming second in the Spanish league when you are managing Real Madrid isn't really an achievement it's probably the minimum they would expect. He won the title there going up against a Barcelona side that is one of the best of all time so fair play to him for that.

I don't know but I would imagine that the Madrid fans probably don't see his time there as a success.

Of course given where we are at the moment we would be ecstatic with that record. We haven't won the league in 23 years and have only finished in the top two 3 times in that period, where as Madrid have finished either first or second in Spain for the last 9 years. We haven't even qualified for the CL in the last 4 years. So it's a different measure of success.

[Darkon]

Even when we were most succesfull that would have been a good record IMO. I'm just saying his record there isn't as bad as people are ready to make out because they don't like him as a person i.e. can't see above that, or just want him taken down a notch (which the later I can understand )

I just can't think of any club in the world, where that normally wouldn't be counted as a succesfull 3 years. And breaking both the point and scoring record at the club at the same time, suggest to me that it wasn't all that bad. All but the last 6 months or so that is. To me it rather suggests it's about the person rather than the actual results. Of course Real expects to mount a title challenge and come in at second the least, just as Celtic and Rangers used to have it.

[Shaggy]

His remit was to win the league, win the Champions League and put Madrid back above Barcelona. One out of three AND a massive split in the dressing room. I'd call that failure.

Failed to meet his objectives.