To the very last the old‑school Chelsea fans backed José Mourinho, their Special One, the manager who has brought them more silverware than any other. Their vocal support, as the team has plumbed the depths during this most traumatic of seasons, has been an unheralded but extremely impressive detail. Mourinho admitted last Friday that he had been embarrassed by it.
It is rather to state the obvious but it was not reflected by enough of the players or, in the end, by the board, with Michael Emenalo, the technical director, depersonalising Mourinho on Thursday night, hours after his sacking, by unwittingly giving him a new nickname, The Individual.
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