Jose Mourinho has admitted to one of his former Chelsea stars, John Obi Mikel, that his ultra-tough man-management style wouldn’t go down well with players today
Jose Mourinho joked to one of his former players that he would be in prison if he treated players today like his Chelsea stars of yesteryear. The managerial legend is still going strong at the age of 62 as boss of Turkish heavyweights Fenerbahce.
The Portuguese tactician still knows how to grab the headlines, whether he is railing against the football authorities or blasting officials. However, Mourinho’s man-management has had to evolve since the days he burst into the Premier League with Chelsea in 2004, having punched above his weight with Porto.
While Roman Abramovich’s riches played a major part in his success at Stamford Bridge, his at times brutal management style also helped turn the Blues into a winning machine in the mid-2000s before the end of his first spell in 2007. By his own admission, Mourinho has had to tone it down over the years.
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John Obi-Mikel fondly recalls playing under Mourinho at both ends of his time at Chelsea between 2006 and 2017. The pair are still friends, but the Nigerian midfielder admitted his toughness with players wasn’t for the faint-hearted.
During an appearance on Gary Lineker’s The Rest is Football show, he said: “If you can’t deal with that, you’re in trouble. He came on my podcast. He said to me, ‘Mikel, if I dealt with the players today how I dealt with you guys, I would be in jail right now.”
As Lineker laughed, Mikel added: “It’s true! The players today can’t handle that. They’d be on their phone to their parents, their agents. Before you know it, they want to hook the players out of the club.”
Mikel recalled a typical dressing room rollicking following a below-standard first-half performance. He said: “He gave it to us. If you’re walking to the dressing room at half-time, you’re losing the game, you know.
“You walk in, everyone sits down. Everyone is thinking, ‘Who’s going to get a b*********?’ He walks in, we’re all shivering, we’ve taken off our shirts and put a towel on, trying to keep warm. He’s in the toilet, he takes his time, everyone is waiting, two minutes, three minutes, you don’t see him.
“The whole place is silent. He walks in, his fly is down, his belt and everything is open. Then he stands in front of us and this is when he starts doing his fly [up]. He doesn’t say anything, then he starts to do his [tie].
“And you’re thinking, ‘F****** hell, who is going to get it?’ Then he kicks off, [saying] “You mother f******, where the hell did you guys sleep last night?’ He goes into everybody.”
One particular tirade saw Mourinho target the usually reliable Claude Makelele. Mikel added: “I remember he went into Makelele one time. We were losing 1-0. He said, ‘Claude, what are you doing? Claude Makelele, in case you haven’t realised, we’re in black, Wigan are wearing blue. Pass the ball to the guys who are wearing black.
“Claude was like that [folds his arms looking unhappy] because Claude never got it because he was a senior player, but Jose lost it that day.
“And he said to Michael Ballack, ‘Don’t you come to my country to buy a house. Buy a house somewhere else!’ What has that got to do with the game but that was just Jose.”
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