Jose Mourinho’s return to Chelsea could not have marked a better start to the summer for Blues fans, but already questions are starting to be asked about ‘the Special One’.
Forget a couple of defeats and the odd ropey performance, these things can happen, but Jose’s treatment of fans’ favourite Juan Mata is ruffling a few feathers at Stamford Bridge.
It’s a hard situation to fathom and it will remain difficult to judge until the whole thing unravels itself – perhaps in January.
Mourinho has told Mata to ‘prove him wrong’, but in fact his decisions need to be proved right – the Portuguese needs his early actions to be vindicated by the playmaker coming back a better player than ever before.
If Mata works on the areas Mourinho requires and returns with another dimension to his game, his early-season snub will all be forgotten. But if it ends with the Spaniard being offloaded when the transfer window reopens, no doubt many Chelsea fans will be angry Mata couldn’t have been used as he has been so successfully for the past two years.
So he doesn’t defend and his tackling is pretty questionable, but his attacking prowess more than makes up for that. Surely it’s better to have an attack-minded player in the opposition’s half than on his own 18-yard line, especially when others are willing and able to carry out defensive duties.
Even ignoring the fact the 25-year-old has been voted Chelsea’s back-to-back Player of the Year, he inspired almost every single Chelsea victory last season, proven by the number of times the Blues failed to pick up three points without Mata in the starting line-up. On 13 occasions last term the former Valencia man started on the bench, his side failing to win in 10 of those matches.





  

That’s not to say Mata is or should be untouchable, he is as open to criticism as any other player. But nothing has yet to warrant it. And there are certainly a couple of other players whose performances have been consistently below-par this term.
Mourinho obviously sees more on the training ground than supporters do on a matchday, but Mata’s character says he is unlikely to be one to throw a strop when the going gets a bit tough.
So his exclusion from not only the starting XI but now the entire squad is nothing short of baffling. If Mourinho wants him to work on certain aspects of his game, surely giving him match-time to show what he is willing to do for the team is a fair enough demand.
And with all due respect to both Swindon and the Capital One Cup, handing him a starting place at the County Ground after the Fulham snub is nothing short of insulting.
Mourinho is without a shadow of a doubt Chelsea’s greatest ever manager. That does not automatically make every decision he makes or stance he takes correct. Nor does it mean his actions should not be scrutinised in the same manner as Rafael Benitez’s or Andre Villas-Boas’.
Maybe history means Chelsea fans should trust him to know what he’s doing and there seems no legitimate reason why he would marginalise Mata unless it’s purely tactical with a long-term plan to take the Spaniard’s already top-quality game to a whole new level.
But as previously mentioned, only time will tell if that’s the case, although for Mourinho’s previously unwavering stance among Chelsea fans, he has never been in greater need of a man-management masterclass coming off.