Guest post 1: Mourinho – Great tactician but not a builder of great sides

By Conor O’Callaghan

On Saturday last week Jose Mourinho moved to 130 games without a home league defeat after securing a 0-0 draw with bitter rivals Sampadoria. This record spans 3 different clubs over the course of 4 years.  The result also helped Inter maintain a 5-point lead at the top of Serie A as they look to secure their 3^rd successive Scudetto under Mourinho. This title will be added to Mourinho’s already impressive list of honours won in England and Portugal.

 There is no doubt that Mourinho is one of the games great coaches whose tactical know how has seen him move effortlessly between different leagues winning every trophy in all three countries he has managed in as well as winning the UEFA Cup and the Champions League with relative minnows Porto. Although it is clear that Mourinho is unmatched as getting the best out of a squad of players, it is also equally true that he is not a great builder of sides. At Chelsea he made a string of signings who did not perform as Mourinho would have hoped, Kezman, Jarosik and Thiago spring to mind along with others. At Inter he has failed to bring in the right balance of players required to mount a serious bid at winning the Champions League, a task that was central to his appointment at Inter Milan after previous manager Roberto Mancini failed to progress into the later stages of Europe’s elite competition.  By the end of his 3^rd season at Chelsea it appeared that his squad was weaker than that with which he had inherited from his predecessor Claudio Ranieri.

There is an old adage in football which states that some players work best as impact subs and it may be that Mourinho is the managerial equivilant of an impact substitute passing through briefly, winning some silverware, but never sticking around to rebuild a new side. Although no doubt one of the great tacticians in the modern game, Mourinho cannot be considered one of the all time greats until he has manager a single club over a many years like Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.  However, if he can manage this trickiest of feats he may well go down as the greatest manager of all time.

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