The Thamesmead Grump

THE LONG DROP

Those fatal words

Poor Jose Mourinho, the embattled manager of Chelsea football club has just been told that he "continues to have the full backing of the club." This is the football equivalent of the Judge putting on his black skull cap in the days when we still had capital punishment.

I don't follow football or indeed any sport really. I did like to watch the Formula 1 before they put it behind a Sky paywall but that's about it. While football itself holds no attraction for me, the antics of the players, managers and clubs are always worth following. There is apparently a player's union called the Professional Footballer's Association although personally, I would have thought they would be more at home in Equity. Some of the antics they get up to on the field are a match for any Shakespearean death scene. My favourites include the "rolling about on the grass clutching the severed limb," also the "my head has been caved in with a large club which the other player has now cunningly concealed down his sock."

Managers used to restrict their performances to pacing up and down the touchline angrily waving their arms about and pointing. Not any more. To be a proper manager of a top flight team requires a full on hissy fit, involving the shouting and swearing at the referee, linesmen, the manager of the opposing team and even their own staff. 

The assumption that you are going to win every game and if you don't it must be a conspiracy involving all of the above, plus the media of course, is something you always used to associate with Manchester United in the Alex Ferguson days but the practice has spread and Jose Mourinho has become a master of the art.

It's not going to help him one bit though because not only is his team languishing in the bottom half of the Premiership table, "he has the full backing of the club."