I think we are beginning to see the difference between Maureen and the GPC. One ruthlessly stamped down on any dissent and maintained the team ethic at any cost, even if it meant getting rid of one of his big stars (stam, keane, ince). Detest him as we did, he consistently made his own decisions perhaps as he had the luxury of alternative options.
The other appears to be trying to impose a similar approach to showing who's the boss, but unfortunately is being inconsistent in application: world cup winning German legend relegated to playing with the kids with hardly a chance to prove his worth, while out of form, unfit, perennial international underachiever is continually lauded and able to boss his way into every starting 11. This kind of unfairness winds people up and creates resentment and rebellion.
Moumou may be somewhat hogtied by the fact that he has a squad with a couple of quality players surrounded by so much mediocrity, with the balance of the squad being way out of kilter in the positions he needs, but he had the chance to fix this in the summer, and didn't.
Why? Is he having to kow-tow to the corporate marketing machine over team needs? Quite possibly. Not a good look for 'the gaffer'.
Slur Alex would never have stood for this. He would also never have been so quick to publicly throw his players under the bus.
Now the poisoned chalice that Moaninho has inherited may go some way to explaining the fed up expression and apparent lack of joy in his demeanor ever since he joined. As some have commented, it's almost as if he is grieving. But that's the kicker. Surely he would have recognised this hamstrung scenario way before signing up? Most everyone else has.
Which leads me to one conclusion: yes, his lack of bottle in refusing to drop wooney is what's causing dressing room unrest and undermining his own authority, but that's ok. Because, for the canny Jose, he's not really a pig in a poke shackled by the constraints of coporate greed and haunted by the expectations of the ghost of past successes. For him, it's win-win, and always has been:
To get him, you can bet the rags made it sweet, reeeal sweet. And for someone who may have lost his love for the game during the various shenanigans at both Real and Chelski, he may as well cash in what's left of his reputation while he can. Right now, either he turns things around and is the hero once more, or things continue to go belly up and he gets another mega-handsome pay-off.
I don't think his heart's in it any more, and he may not care how things eventually work out as we saw at Chelsea, but I think he did see the rags coming. However, with their short-term focus on trying to keep up with us purely via hand-to-mouth publicity, I don't think they saw the destructive monster that lurks within him. Let's now see if they have the resources and nouse to weather their own mercenary era.
