Mourinho basks in sense of grievance

English FA Premiership : Jose Mourinho had just watched his team secure their second consecutive Premiership title by destroying…

English FA Premiership: Jose Mourinho had just watched his team secure their second consecutive Premiership title by destroying their rivals with a hugely satisfying demonstration of power, precision and flair. Yet he could hardly wait to plunge into the latest of the psychodramas that make him so intriguing a figure and, for neutrals, so difficult to admire.

"This is the fourth time in a row I win a championship," he said an hour after the final whistle on Saturday. "I should be the happiest man in the world but I am not. It makes me sick."

In the dressingroom his players were celebrating the wonderful achievement of repeating last season's title. At such a moment other managers would have stood aside to allow them to bathe in the glory. And, of course, Mourinho was ready with his unstinted praise for John Terry, who limped through the last 83 minutes of the match with a wound, caused by Wayne Rooney's studs, that later required 10 stitches. But, inevitably, the spotlight quickly turned on to the manager and his permanent sense of grievance.

"Chelsea is treated always in a negative way," he said, and announced he had twice considered the possibility of leaving at the end of this season. Only his good relationship with Roman Abramovich and Peter Kenyon, he said, had induced him to stay. "To be recognised for what you do at this club is very difficult," he continued. "We win nine matches at the start of the season and later we had another good period, but I was never manager of the month."

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For a manager with two Portuguese titles, two English titles, the League Cup, the Uefa Cup and the European Cup to his name in four years to complain in a moment of triumph about missing out on the manager of the month award seems, to the outsider, frankly bizarre. But then Mourinho's behaviour so often runs across the grain, and never more so than on Saturday.

He had begun the afternoon by embarrassing Alex Ferguson with an attempt at a pre-match embrace in the Latin style.

Then came Mourinho's reaction to William Gallas's opening goal, a strange little ballet featuring a succession of shrugs and an indecipherable semaphore of fluttering hands.

He was more positive in his response to the wonderful solo effort with which Joe Cole doubled the lead but a couple of minutes after the same player had delivered the pass from which Ricardo Carvalho completed the scoring Chelsea's number 10 was being removed. With a quarter of an hour left this was not a gesture aimed at allowing Cole to enjoy his own ovation. It was, clearly, another example of Mourinho explicitly demonstrating his power over a player whom he continues to treat like a schoolboy.

A couple of minutes before the final whistle came the most extraordinary moment of all, when Mourinho walked across to the away bench and proceeded, while play continued, to shake the hands of the United coaching staff, including that of the manager. Ferguson kept his stony gaze fixed on the play. An invitation to acknowledge defeat at such a moment was at best patronising and at worst insulting. ... Guardian Service