Humiliation of Manchester United Has Cured Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho Hangover

STAMFORD BRIDGE, London — Chelsea didn’t just defeat Manchester United on Sunday, they humiliated them. It was a spectacular loss for Jose Mourinho’s side, dishing up the Stamford Bridge homecoming he was never expecting.

This wasn’t a love affair, it was a massacre.

Mourinho wasn’t supposed to watch his team being thrashed 4-0. He was supposed to be turning up in west London to show the Blues what they were missing—we were expecting a parade. Now Manchester United manager, the Portuguese was supposed to remind those in SW6 what it was that had so endeared them to him.

As former Blues striker Eidur Gudjohnsen would later joke on Twitter, Mourinho still knows how to get the best out of this Chelsea team, only these days it’s coming at his expense.

Jose still knows how to get the best out of @ChelseaFC #CHEMUN

— Eidur Gudjohnsen (@Eidur22Official) October 23, 2016

The Blues were formidable on Sunday as they blasted United back up the M6. In so doing, manager Antonio Conte has banished the demons Mourinho’s ghost had left behind at Stamford Bridge. The baggage is gone; a Mourinho hangover has been cured.

For the past decade, with or without Mourinho, it’s been his influence that has dominated the conversation for Chelsea. When he was sacked for the first time in 2007, Blues supporters pined for his return; when he eventually came back in 2013—before being sacked last December—it created the infamous “palpable discord” that carried over from the dressing room to the terraces.

Not anymore. Stamford Bridge fans have a new icon to get behind—Conte is their leader now. And after such a convincing victory, this feels like a significant moment in the manager’s Chelsea career.

Sure, it’s still early days for the Italian, but in defeating Mourinho in the manner he did, Conte has given Chelsea confidence they can exist without the Special One at the wheel.

That has long been an issue for the club. It was always Mourinho’s formula that was driving them on; he put that in place in 2004 and it served them right through to that victory in Munich in the …

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