Conte, Mourinho and the imbalance of credit
Date published: Friday 3rd March 2017 4:10
Roy Keane is unmoved.
“I’ve little time for Jose Mourinho. They’re sixth in the league. People are like, ‘I can see progress’ – but United are sixth! And they have beaten no-one big in the last three months.”
Not for Keane, the fawning over a 16-match unbeaten run in the Premier League. Not for Keane, the fanciful talk of a cup treble that is somehow no longer plastic but made of wrought iron. Not for Keane, the notion that beating “lads, it’s Tottenham” at home means Manchester United have claimed a valuable scalp. Not for Keane, the claims that Jose Mourinho has somehow rescued United from the very depths of despair and delivered them to triumph and glory.
Not for Keane. All he sees is a team in sixth who hauled themselves to League Cup victory, have picked up just six points in six games against their direct rivals in the Premier League and have not won a single away game in the top flight against any team better than West Brom. And he is unimpressed.
The reason Keane’s words sound like treason is that he is in a tiny minority of people watching Manchester United sweep or occasionally stagger past the likes of Wigan, Leicester, Watford and Saint-Etienne and is managing to somehow resist rising to his feet to marvel at the very special job being done by a serial, special winner who has dragged this club back to greatness…using only his sheer specialness and many, many millions of pounds.
The admiration being shovelled in Mourinho’s direction is far from surprising and many in the media are unashamedly desperate for a competitive Manchester United, particularly when led by a quotable, accessible manager who can single-handedly drive a sports news agenda. But it does jar a little in comparison with the lack of fanfare that greets his former club’s now-routine victories.
If Mourinho is being showered with ludicrous praise for becoming the first Manchester United manager to win a trophy in his first season – just nine months after they won their last trinket – then what should we be saying about Antonio Conte? If Mourinho took over a United on their knees, Conte took over a Chelsea lying on their backs, and the Italian needed only a few months to lift them so high that every win is greeted with nothing more than a shrug. One defeat in 20 Premier League games does not not even seem extraordinary because winning almost every game, being ten points ahead, scoring three goals at Stamford Bridge, it has all become so very ordinary.
We no longer marvel at Victor Moses being a potentially title-winning wing-back, Pedro morphing into one of the Premier League’s most potent attacking midfielders, Diego Costa losing his nasty streak without losing his powers or Cesar Azpilicueta almost seamlessly transitioning from right-back to left-back to right-sided centre-half. This is the new normal.
Four Premier League managers earn more than Antonio Conte. Two Premier League managers spent more than Antonio Conte last summer. Nine Premier League managers finished above this almost-identical set of Chelsea players last season. The mundanity of this march to the title should not detract from the scale of the achievement. He is no Claudio Ranieri and this is no fairy tale but absolutely nobody predicted how this particular story would evolve.
Of the 33 BBC TV and radio pundits, presenters, journalists and commentators asked to provide their predictions in August, only three tipped Chelsea for the title; ten thought they would miss out on the top four altogether. Those predictions were mimicked in every newspaper, on every website and in every workplace and pub across England. Few people knew quite enough about Conte to be convinced, and fewer still expected, or crucially wanted, to see anybody or anything spoil the potentially titanic battle about to take place in Manchester. The Italian has been a gatecrasher and a spoilsport. He has also been brilliant.
For any club to stride this far ahead and with such ease would be notable, but to do this in a manager’s first season in English football is almost unprecedented. We say ‘almost’ because Mourinho himself pulled off this particular trick – though he had taken over a Chelsea side that had just finished second rather than tenth. They have both proved capable of admirable adaptation, of extraordinary leadership and of tactical brilliance, but Conte is undoubtedly winning this particular round, whatever the media would have you believe.
Sarah Winterburn
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