Greg Lea
Jose Mourinho has never been one to conform to rules or manage by the textbook. It is partly what has allowed him to enjoy so much success in the dugout.
After his side's 2-0 win over Aston Villa last weekend, however, acting in a more conventional manner may have been the Chelsea manager's best option.
“I left out Hazard because we are conceding lots of goals,” Mourinho said after the victory at Stamford Bridge. “We need to defend better.
“It was a tactical decision. Leaving super quality on the bench, but bringing tactical discipline and hoping that the team could be solid.
“I continue that way [with the same XI] or [Hazard] comes in our direction and tries to emulate the same [defensive] work that Willian and Pedro put in.”
It was a bold move from Mourinho to explicitly detail why last term’s Player of the Year had been demoted.
Others may have publicly claimed that Hazard was being rested or carrying a slight knock but, as is well-established by now, Mourinho is a law unto himself and instead left nobody in any doubt as to why the Belgium international had not made the cut.
This was just the latest example of the Chelsea coach clashing with a fellow club employee this season.
John Terry was hauled off at half-time of the 3-0 defeat to Manchester City and subsequently dropped for Kurt Zouma, while Nemanja Matic was substituted on and then brought off 28 minutes later against Southampton.
Most memorably of all, Mourinho admonished physio Jon Fearn and doctor Eva Carneiro for failing to “understand the game” after they tended to the injured Hazard in the opening-day draw with Swansea City.
It is possible to have some sympathy with Mourinho for his player-related decisions – though not in the episode with Fearn and Carneiro, where his behaviour was more than questionable.
The replacement of Terry with Zouma at City made sense tactically, adding pace to a backline that was forced to push higher up the pitch as Chelsea chased the game after the interval.
Even if he risked humiliating Matic, taking a defensive-minded midfielder off in the Southampton encounter was also comprehensible given Chelsea’s need for two goals in 17 minutes.
Benching Hazard for the victory over Villa did come as a surprise, but even the 25-year-old’s most ardent supporters cannot legitimately contest the charge that he has been far from his best so far this year.
While there are thus multiple mitigating factors that must be taken into account in each individual case, the concern for Chelsea fans is what their amalgamation represents.
Mourinho has always relied on friction and antagonism to operate. One of his greatest strengths is being able to forge a siege mentality among his players and convincing some of the biggest stars in the world that they are underdogs.
Previously, however, the people he used to create said friction tended to be external to his club: from referees to the Football Association, opposing managers to television pundits, the enemy was always on the outside, and Mourinho could channel the resultant tension into a positive energy that would benefit his team.
This time around, the targets have still at times been external: the FA, match officials and Arsene Wenger have all felt the 52-year-old’s wrath in the last couple of months.
But the recent internal collisions with his own players and staff evoke bad memories of Mourinho’s final season at Real Madrid, when a toxic feud with club legend Iker Casillas, fallings-out with defenders Sergio Ramos and Pepe and a year of general infighting and disunity made his position untenable in the summer of 2013.
That situation does not appear to be on the horizon at Chelsea just yet, but Mourinho must be careful not to alienate the people he is relying on to help him turn things around.
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