Mourinho Sacked?

As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
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Zimgooner
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Post by Zimgooner »

I'm hoping to hearing Mourinho's interview after all this......being as eccentric as he is, he probably will have much to say. Let the slagging begin..........Gallas said Chelsea lack class...........wht do you say Mournino?

Ben-gooner14
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Post by Ben-gooner14 »

According to ssn the chelsea supporters group will have a protest tonight.

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Zimgooner
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Post by Zimgooner »

My fav Mournino quote

“Look at the blonde boy in midfield, Robbie Savage, who commits 20 fouls during the game and never gets a booking. We came here to play football and it was not a football game, it was a fight..........â€

Magic Hat
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Post by Magic Hat »

daz10_uk wrote:What a laughing stock they are and who the F*ck is Avram Grant ?????
Manager of a lot of teams in Israel where he was a success and took charge of the country team from 2002-2006 where he turned them into a formidable side that went unbeaten in 2006 qualifiers, drawing against France twice

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SPUDMASHER
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Post by SPUDMASHER »

At least with his big pay-off he will be able to buy his eggs from Waitrose now! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Ben-gooner14
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Post by Ben-gooner14 »

Skip the video untill 1 min 50 and then watch.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UBniDRCcciI
Here's some other one's that were rather funny
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KOcVqCmap ... ed&search=
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MrXJNpzcp ... ed&search=

Last clip is the funniest.
Last edited by Ben-gooner14 on Thu Sep 20, 2007 2:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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REB
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Post by REB »

Ben-gooner14 wrote:Skip the video untill 1 min 50 and then watch.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UBniDRCcciI
thats GIFT GRUB ,,its on irish radio every morn at 8.15,,
they do wenger, fergie the lot,,
really funny show :lol:

dbrien
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Post by dbrien »

Apparently Lady Diana is dead too

26may1989
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Post by 26may1989 »

26may1989 wrote:
tonysaunders wrote:Someone's read my article in the most recent Gooner :wink:
Sorry to say I haven't - is it a case of great minds thinking alike??
TS, have now read your article in The Gooner. Were we both contributing to the same blog on footballunlimited.co.uk?? Anyway, to prove I wasn't copying you (would I?), here's my post from 11 Sept (see the point about the increased quotas next season, which is going to make things very interesting next year):



You might know about this already, but it's always good to laugh at those tossers down at The Bridge.

The real reason Chelsea didn't include Ballack in their Champs' League squad is because they didn't read the UEFA rule book properly. To explain, I have to get into the rules, which is a bit boring. But it's worth it, to understand how those smug tits managed to lumber Chelsea with a smaller squad than everyone else and had to omit Ballack and Scott Sinclair. To make matters better, the situation will be even worse for Chelsea next year (if they qualify).

The rules:

1. Clubs can submit a squad of 25 A List players plus as many B List players as they want. B List players are 21 or under and have been at the club for at least 2 years. Cesc is one of our B List players.

2. 6 of the 25 A List spots are reserved for locally trained players (at least 3 for those trained by the club).

Chelsea only have one player who counts as club trained (Terry), so they could only name 23 players (plus 2 inexperienced reserves as B List players). We on the other hand have at least 7 (and possibly up to 11) senior/senior-ish players who qualify, and some of them (like Cesc) qualify as B List too. So, we got to put in our entire senior squad of 25 plus another 3 B List players (i.e. in addition to Cesc). AND, if we sign someone in January, we still have a spare A List place, so can put that player in straight away, whereas Chelsea would have to displace one of the senior players to accommodate a signing.

No other club in the Champs' League managed to screw up like Chelsea, everyone else got their entire senior squad in.

The situation gets worse for Chelsea next year, because the number of places reserved for locally trained players increases from 6 to 8.

Ha ha ha ha! Twats! Another reason to congratulate Arsene - top man!

Hagbard 23
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Post by Hagbard 23 »

Personally I liked 'The Special One', and will be sorry to see him leave the Premiership, if only for his comedy value and his fake loyalty to the 'Burberried' ones.

Couldn't we ask Hill-Wood to offer him a job as a P.R. man or similar ? :lol:

Lpool
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Post by Lpool »

Got this of a very good source


Tuesday, 10pm, home dressing room, Stamford Bridge. Andriy Shevchenko is taking Michael Essien to task on his performance in the night's embarrassing 1-1 draw with Rosenborg. The former European footballer of the year tells Africa's finest midfielder that he tried to make too many passes through the centre of the Norwegians' formation where '70 percent of their players were'. Essien learns he should have been passing to the wings 'where they only had 30 percent of their men'.
Not the most insightful of tactical advice, but then these are not the thoughts of a Ukraine international, they are those of a Russian billionaire. Standing beside Shevchenko, tactics board in hand, Roman Abramovich is the man telling Essien how to play football. Shevchenko is merely there to translate. In another room, attending to the press, Mourinho is utterly unaware of his employer's actions.

Tuesday, 7:11pm, the home dressing room. Chelsea's squad of 18 are called out for their pre-match warm up. All the players step out for the carefully prepared drill - except one. John Terry remains sitting where he is. One of Jose Mourinho's assistants urges Terry out. Chelsea's captain refuses, swears, and, according to an eye witness, says he is upset and has 'things on my mind'. Terry is said to be furious after finding out that Mourinho had been asking in Chelsea's treatment room whether there was a medical reason for his perceived loss of form over recent weeks. The stand-off continues until a team-mate cajoles his friend out on to the pitch.

The game starts, Chelsea quickly lose a goal at a free kick as Miika Koppinen stretches ahead of Terry to turn in a near-post cross. Chelsea go in at half time 1-0 down and Jose Mourinho takes his captain to task, blaming the defender for the deficit. Terry says nothing but all his team-mates can see the anger on his face.

The pair had once been the closest of footballing allies, but within 24 hours Mourinho is no longer Terry's manager as Chelsea agree to a £10.5million pay-off to rid themselves of a man they describe as 'the most successful manager the club has known'.

'The relationship broke down not because of one detail or because of something that happened at a certain moment. It broke down over a period of time.' - Jose Mourinho, 21 September 2007.

To understand how the winner of two Premier League titles, two League Cups and one FA Cup, a man who averaged an unprecedented 2.33 points from his 120 Premiership games in just over three seasons, steadily became persona non grata at the club he made great, it is necessary to return to the summer of 2005.

'In Jose's first season everything was fine,' said a Chelsea employee who suffered the Abramovich guillotine long before the Portuguese. 'He came in, he won the title by miles, almost made the Champions League final, everyone was happy. But then it all began to go wrong. Peter Kenyon started thinking it was his genius as a chief executive that was important. Abramovich's mates were telling him his money had done it and any half-decent coach would win the league with those resources. They forgot that the most important man at any club is the manager.'

That summer, Chelsea poached Tottenham Hotspur's sporting director Frank Arnesen at a cost of £5m. Ostensibly recruited to revolutionise the club's sub-standard youth ranks, the Dane was actually brought in on the recommendation of Piet de Visser, a well-known Dutch talent scout who had advised Abramovich on football matters from his first months as Chelsea owner.

Arnesen and De Visser, friends and allies from their time together at Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, steadily worked to influence Abramovich's thinking on the first team, and, most importantly, player recruitment. Along with the agents Soren Lerby, Vlado Lemeic and Pini Zahavi they sought to steer Abramovich towards the purchase of certain footballers. Their objective, according to one source, was 'to get to Abramovich's money. To do that they needed power at the club, needed a manager who would do what they wanted. Mourinho was not that manager.'

Thus emerged a power struggle in which Arnesen and others seemed to undermine Mourinho by questioning him at every opportunity. When Mourinho went to war with Uefa over the actions of referees they told Abramovich his coach was embarrassing the club. When Mourinho's team dourly won key matches by a goal to nil, they told the owner a better coach would win by more goals and bring him far more flamboyant football. When a Mourinho signing failed to perform on the pitch, they told Abramovich that better players could be found elsewhere.

Within a year, and despite Mourinho's success in claiming a second successive Premiership, the manager had lost control of transfers. In the 2006 summer window, Mourinho asked the board to buy Samuel Eto'o; they spent a UK record £30m on Shevchenko. Chelsea sold William Gallas to Arsenal against Mourinho's wishes, and forced the £7m Khalid Boulahrouz upon him, while Arnesen compounded the error of allowing Chelsea's most effective defender to leave the club by pulling the plug on the £5m purchase of Micah Richards. Inside a season Richards was a full England international, while Boulahrouz was stinking out the reserves until Chelsea paid Sevilla to take him off their hands.

At least Mourinho could easily leave the Dutch defender out of the first team. A personal friend of Abramovich's, Shevchenko played regardless of his performances, and those were usually awful. In his first 26 appearances for Chelsea, the Ukrainian striker scored five goals. His coaches and team-mates often felt as though Chelsea were playing with 10 men and Mourinho was faced with a problem - should he leave out the owner's pal or lose the faith of the rest of the team?

As January approached, Mourinho asked to be allowed to sign a new striker. The board refused. Mourinho asked for a centre-back to cover for Terry, then sidelined with a serious back problem. The board offered him a choice between Alex, a Brazilian bought via De Visser and 'parked' at PSV for two seasons, and Tal Ben Haim, a Zahavi client. Mourinho wanted neither.

Worse still, Chelsea's manager was instructed to sack one of his assistants and add the Israeli Avram Grant to his coaching staff. When he refused, the club descended into open warfare.

Mourinho dropped Shevchenko from his first team, leaking the story to a national newspaper in an open challenge to Abramovich to sack him. On an emotional afternoon at Stamford Bridge the manager first rallied his team around him, then sent them out to overrun Wigan 4-0. Long before kick-off the Chelsea supporters were chanting 'Stand up for the Special One' through standing ovation after standing ovation.

An infuriated Abramovich ceased attending games and instructed his advisors to find a replacement coach. Mourinho let it be known that he would leave, but only on payment of the outstanding value of his contract - about £28m comprising £5.2m per annum for three-and-a-half years and up to £10m in bonuses. In the meantime he kept winning matches, pushing his injury-hit squad to within a few games of a remarkable quadruple.

Ultimately Chelsea won the League Cup and the FA Cup, forcing Abramovich to reconcile with his manager. A consciously 'mellow' Mourinho promised to avoid conflict with opposing managers and football authorities, accepted restrictions on his transfer budget, and reshaped his team in a more flamboyant 4-4-2 formation. Fatefully, he also acceded to the appointment of Grant as Chelsea's director of football.

Though some in Mourinho's camp had Grant pinned as a 'Mossad Spy' from the off, the manager attempted to work with him, holding long meetings with him during the club's staggeringly positive pre-season US tour and letting it be known that he welcomed his arrival as a buffer against Arnesen and route to Abramovich. The early-season optimism, however, swiftly evaporated.

Grant began calling individual players aside to ask them questions.
'You look sad, why?' 'How do you feel in this position?' 'Is this the best place for you to play?' 'Are we using your abilities well?' Because many of them complained about this to Mourinho, the manager decided to cut back radically on team meetings, the only one this season having been arranged for the Jewish New Year when Grant had returned to Israel.

While Grant looked on at training, Shevchenko treated it with disdain. A morose, lonely figure around the camp, he seemed to show more interest in improving his golf swing than his shooting. As the first team prepared for their final pre-season friendly against Danish side Brondby, Shevchenko declared himself unfit with a back problem. A 2-0 victory ensured the £121,000-a-week striker was not missed, but Mourinho was bemused to discover that Shevchenko's bad back had not prevented him from enjoying a round of golf at Sunningdale that day.

The board, though, were not interested and the club's descent continued. Other players began to realise what was happening, that the summer's peace was a false one, that their manager had no support from the top. 'The mentality became weaker and weaker,' said one insider. 'You could feel the team's strength sapping away.'

Mourinho knew his time at Chelsea was coming to an end. At Uefa's forum for elite coaches in Geneva a fortnight ago he allowed Premier League rivals an insight into his thinking. 'Mourinho said he loved Chelsea and he loved English football, but thought he would not stay for long,' said one coach. 'One of us asked him why. He wouldn't answer, but it was obvious something was seriously wrong.'

His next Champions League match brought the end. On Wednesday afternoon the board asked Mourinho to resign, citing his handling of Shevchenko, his attitude to authority and, crucially, his relationship with Terry as reasons why he should go. Mourinho refused to walk, and fought only to maximise his pay-off as Chelsea apparently threatened to call club employees to testify against him at any employment tribunal.

A £10.5m pay-off was agreed and the following morning Mourinho made a final trip to the training centre at Cobham to pick up his possessions and say goodbye to his squad. There was a message in each farewell. For most there was a Latin embrace and warm words of thanks. For Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard the emotions were so strong that both men were reduced to tears, Lampard retreating to the shower room in an attempt to hide his. For Shevchenko and Terry there was nothing but a handshake that, in the words of one observer, could have 'frozen a mug of tea'. No one was in any doubt about who he considered the true captains of his team.

Out with the old, in with the new. Furious at Mourinho's dismissal, senior players describe Grant's appointment as 'a disgrace'. Some at Cobham call him 'an idiot' and describe his coaching techniques as '25 years behind the times'. Abramovich pushes the Israeli around 'without a hint of respect'.

Former academy coach Brendan Rogers has been drafted in to help out with the first team, a promotion that may not be unconnected to the one-on-one training sessions he gave Abramovich's son. Only in Steve Clarke is there the level of football knowledge to deal with a squad full of international superstars. As the sole survivor of Mourinho's cadre of four assistant managers, the Scotsman has an unenviable task.

But then neither he nor Grant will be picking the team. As Michael Essien discovered on Tuesday night, the new manager of Chelsea is also the owner

http://72.232.159.23/forum/index.php?PH ... pic=5426.0

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REB
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Post by REB »

THAT WAS IN THE OBSERVER LAST SUN :oops:

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