Neil Ashton: Chelsea players and staff desperate to beat ‘raging monster’ Jose Mourinho
While the Chelsea fans will sing the Man United boss' name, inside the club they would love to humiliate the Special One
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THEY will stand up for their Special One on Sunday.
The man who made it all happen when he arrived from Porto in 2004.
That respect, that affection, will be rolling off the terraces when he emerges from the tunnel at Stamford Bridge.
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Jose Mourinho is still their man, their hero, their all-time favourite Chelsea manager.
Scratch beneath the surface a bit and there is a very different view of the Portuguese super-coach.
The silent assassins, the staff who lived in fear when they cut across his shadow, want the Special One taken out on Sunday.
They want to see him suffer, so badly. To watch the Special One squirm on the touchline as Eden Hazard or Willian or Diego Costa rip Manchester United to shreds.
For Stamford Bridge to come alive and cheer the goals as they fly past the outstretched arms of David De Gea.
For Roman Abramovich, the man forced into two multi-million-pound pay-outs to get shot of Mourinho, to enjoy every minute of it.
They really hope it happens. The last thing they want is classic Mourinho, to watch him park United’s team bus and nick it with a goal from Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Marcus Rashford at the death.
Remember, this is the man who sucked the life out of the place.
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“Palpable discord” was the memorable turn of phrase used by Chelsea’s technical director Michael Emenalo when Mourinho was fired.
That was the nicest possible way of putting it. The Special One left a trail of destruction, breeding contempt with the alarming slide in his attitude during his final few months at the club.
It was felt he was spending too much time in his office when he should have been working with the players.
Tottenham away in November, when he came alive on the training ground after sensing that they might get pumped at White Hart Lane, was his season high.
Everything else was seriously bad.
Nobody — players, rank-and-file employees, Eva Carneiro — was safe. Mourinho became the enemy within. A man who would not accept help when the champions began to lose game after game in the Premier League.
When it got to ten, they fired him.
By then he was a raging monster, picking fights with anything and everything.
In the seven months since he won the title in 2015, Chelsea’s popular doctor had quit and Mourinho had served a one-match stadium ban for refusing to leave the referee’s room at Upton Park.
It was never going to end well.
He has been back once before, when Wesley Sneijder had the best game of his life for Inter Milan during their Champions League victory over Chelsea.
Another humiliation, this time under Antonio Conte, is unthinkable.
When Chelsea were winning, as they did in his first two seasons back in London, Abramovich and his cohorts would put up with anything.
Defeats, along with the damage along the way, were a very different thing.
On Sunday, even though he is now managing United, the fans will pay their dues before kick-off.
They remember the winning machine, the ultimate trophy-hunter.
For a time, when he won three Premier League titles in two spells in west London, he was exactly that.
Many of them would still have him back in a heartbeat.
It will all be nicey-nicey, with plenty of pictures of Mourinho stepping off the team bus to shake hands with the likes of backroom stalwart Gary Staker.
He is good at that bit, turning on the charm when the eyes of the world are upon him. Behind closed doors, it will be business as usual.
