Jose Mourinho and Chelsea were left disappointed yesterday as they saw their title chances extinguish, as they were held to a 0-0 draw at Stamford Bridge by relegation threatened Norwich.
The ‘Special One’ made two surprising changes to his squad for this crucial match, following his criticism of Chelsea’s tactics Eden Hazard found himself on the bench and Brazilian playmaker Oscar didn’t even make the squad.
The two are arguably Chelsea’s most creative players, and the starting eleven that Mourinho picked showed that as they were unable to break down Norwich’s defence.
At half-time the Portuguese manager realised things had to change, bring on Hazard and David Luiz. The home side looked a lot more dangerous with Hazard probing around the box.
Reports in this morning’s papers suggests that Mourinho will want to cash in on either Oscar or Hazard in order to fund his redevelopment of this Chelsea team.
It seems to me that Mourinho is showing the same bullish behaviour he did at Real Madrid, that nobody in the club is a big enough star not to work in his system.
At Porto, his first stint at Chelsea and Inter Milan he never had to act this way because there was no one superstar who refused to sacrifice himself.
This seems similar to when he was arguing with players in the Madrid dressing room, demanding more from Cristiano Ronaldo, Casillias and Ramos.
In my opinion, he should see that Hazard is going to be one of the best in the world and look get him on his side and build the team around him.