EPL Late Tackle: Jose Mourinho’s ugly divorce from Chelsea could lead Blues to title

THE Bridge has been rebuilt and Antonio Conte is using Jose Mourinho’s DIY disaster for his own grand design. And the Blues are in love all over again.

Jose Mourinho is having a season to forget.

LAST season, Chelsea were a stinking shambles. This season, the Blues look Premier League title favourites. And it’s everything that went wrong last season that could make it happen.

Imagine yourself the wounded party in a messy divorce. The partner you once adored – so charming, so successful – had become a bitter, abusive egomaniac who blamed everyone else for their problems.

But now you’re free and with someone else, someone who also has that steel and glamour of success – but whose loving touch helps you rediscover your creativity and joie de vivre. Sniff… blub… It could be a Jennifer Aniston movie.

But no – it’s Chelsea in bloom, reinvigorated by Antonio Conte after Jose Mourinho’s ignominious separation from Stamford Bridge.

Jose Mourinho is having a season to forget.

Jose Mourinho once considered Stamford Bridge his home. Then he burned it. The champions of 2014-15 were a team that looked utterly destroyed by Mourinho’s infectious bitterness. But they survived, surprisingly intact, and now look all the stronger for it.

This weekend the Blues face Crystal Palace and it will be a year to the day since they sacked Mourinho. Back then they were 16th on the table having lost nine of 16 games. Now they are three points clear at the top.

OK - stop the presses! League leaders are title favourites! But this isn’t a snapshot, it’s about context. And no one provides that better than Diego Costa.

The Spain forward is in the best form of his Chelsea career right now and not only that, he’s in the most disciplined form of his time in England.

By this time last term, Costa had already served a three-match suspension for slapping Laurent Koscielny, and he scored just 12 goals all season.

But he’s already beaten that sum and it’s not even Christmas. Only a season-ending injury would stop him better his 20 goals from Chelsea’s ’14-15 title win. And the combustible striker, who became known as Mourinho’s snarling on-field presence, hasn’t seen a yellow card since September – his best record in six years.

And then there’s Eden Hazard, that wondrous but fragile talent, who has been reconstructed, redirected and rejuvenated – all under the guidance of Conte.

With just a few new faces in key places the former Juventus coach has given Chelsea back their bustling physicality, but edged with a particularly Italian discipline.

There has been a suggestion the Blues could be docked points after the brawl in the victory over Manchester City – but this was the club’s fifth rule infraction in 19 months, and it’s not hard to think back to a time when such outbursts appeared to be part of the game plan, rather than a one-off reaction.

Chelsea is four points clear at the top of the EPL table.

The other positive in the mess Mourinho left behind is the absence from Europe. There are doubts over Conte’s strength in depth but without midweek travel draining his resources, Conte has been able to make fewer changes to his starting XI than any other team. Anyone wondering what rest, consistency and continuity can do for a team should just look at Leicester last season.

So while City, Arsenal and Tottenham battle on the continent, and Liverpool continue to shoot themselves in the foot, Chelsea are well placed to power their way into the new year as genuine title favourites.

The Bridge has been rebuilt and Conte is using Mourinho’s DIY disaster for his own grand design. And the Blues are in love all over again.

Originally published as EPL Late Tackle: Jose Mourinho’s ugly divorce from Chelsea could lead Blues to title