JOSE DODGES THE BULLETS

Mourinho on the back foot but won’t admit he’s wrong Pressure mounts as Dr Eva storm continues to rage

THE t hreat seemed genuine enough. ‘Don’t make me another question or I go,’ said a s mouldering Jose Mourinho. ‘I go. Think twice before you ask the question. Think twice.’

But the question came anyway and quite right too, the newspaper reporter asking Chelsea’s manager if Dr Eva Carneiro and the first-team physiotherapist, Jon Fearn, had attended what he insisted was a cordial meeting with his medical staff on Thursday.

Mourinho sprang to his feet. ‘Now I go, have a good weekend,’ he said.

Only he did not go. He flounced, he hovered, he stood by the door, his attempts to appear angry and intimidating somewhat undermined by the baggy tracksuit and flip-flop- sock combination and a look strangely similar to the one worn by Benjamin Braddock when suddenly confronted by a naked Mrs Robinson.

It was a look that accused his tormentors of not playing by the rules. Of trying to seduce him into doing something he might regret.

Steve Atkins, Chelsea’s communications director, urged Mourinho to sit back down and he duly did, but he would talk only about football — not about a controversy he had caused by publicly humiliating a respected sports physician last weekend.

In fairness, Mourinho was always going to be limited as to what he could say at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground yesterday. There were obvious legal implications given Dr Carneiro’s decision to hire lawyers for what might well turn out to be a case of constructive dismissal.

Some of his answers might even have been prepared by the club’s human resources department. The suggestion that Carneiro and Fearn could yet reappear some time on the Chelsea bench certainly sounded a little rehearsed.

But this was far from Mourinho’s finest performance in what has been far from his finest hour. He has behaved appallingly and yesterday there were moments when he was every bit as arrogant; every bit as aloof as he slipped back, depressingly, into the character of the one-time enemy of football.

If Mourinho had been briefed by the communications staff, it is difficult to imagine that his opening remarks in the broadcast section of the press conference followed the script.

ASKED i mmediately if Carneiro and Fearn would be on t he bench at Manchester City tomorrow and whether he had regrets about his conduct, he responded by noting how many reporters were crammed inside the small media room.

‘I hope this room is full because the champions are going to play against the former champion, because the transfer window was on fire, because you have hopefully a big match on Sunday,’ he said.

‘But I knew it already, it wasn’t a surprise, your question. Probably there are some here who don’t like football and come for other reasons.’

Which, of course, we had. We were there in numbers because he had done more than censure Chelsea’s team doctor. He had sparked an ethical debate about the authority of the medical staff and so ventured into dangerous territory. That the medical profession has united in condemning him, most notably FIFA’s chief medical officer, should tell Mourinho he was wrong to lash out.

But there was no sense of remorse, no self-doubt. He did admit to being human enough to make the occasional mistake but he also tried to claim other members of his medical staff accept that public criticism, however scathing, is fair if it helps to raise standards.

I would wager they would be every bit as offended if they were described on television as ‘naive’ and ‘impulsive’ with no real understanding of the game. But if challenging Mourinho, as Carneiro kind of did on Facebook, leads to being stripped of your duties they might think better of it the next time they prepare to rush to the aid of a player.

Asked to discuss concerns raised by medical professionals, Mourinho pleaded the fifth. ‘I am not going to discuss it,’ he snapped. ‘You can make the questions and we don’t stop you making the questions, but you cannot make me answer. I don’t answer.’

He was told he should. ‘ You shouldn’t ask,’ he then replied. ‘It is my opinion and your opinion.’ He did then admit that the wellbeing of the athlete is paramount.

‘The player is more important than the result,’ he said. ‘He is more important than the manager, he is even more important than the referee.’

What he would not accept was the power he has as arguably the most i nfluential f ootball manager in England, and perhaps the world.

But try telling him that with such power comes responsibility or that his words carry serious weight.

‘Power? Oh my word. Jesus Christ! Power of what?’ he said with (mock) indignation. ‘The only power I have is to choose the team, to choose who is on the bench, to choose which exercises we do, which direction we try to take our game plan.

‘That is not power. It is part of my job to advise my board to do something related to the transfer market, to do something in other departments in relation to my needs. But I have power for nothing.’

Only he does, and the sooner he remembers that the better.