Restrained, humble and polite — let’s see how long he can continue like this

 
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Dan Jones19 August 2013

So, then. ‘Jose is home’. And it wasn’t a bad way to come back, either. Chelsea’s 2-0 scuppering of Hull City was the perfect return to Stamford Bridge. A home win. A clean sheet. A steamer of a goal by Frank Lampard. Did the last six years actually happen?

Jose Mourinho walked out to the roar of the crowd and a wet, sloppy gush from the watching media. Everyone was waiting for this. Smiles, shrugs, little kisses. The old salt-and-pepper charm: Mourinho works a stadium like no one else. And his team worked over Hull with ease. Chelsea had 23 shots in the match, seven of them were on target. Even if they closed down the game in the second half, this was an entertaining game and a very promising performance for the first match of the season. Perfection.

After the game, Mourinho said he wanted the fans to “sing about the players and the club, not Jose,” managing the extraordinary feat of saying something entirely self-deprecating while still referring to himself in the third person. Dan Jones thought that was funny but, look, what does Dan Jones know?

Mourinho also spoke after the game about the possibility of signing Wayne Rooney, although he didn’t use Rooney’s name, because that would be disrespectful. And he isn’t disrespectful now. No. So instead he spoke about signing an anonymous mystery striker who belongs to another club, has a head shaped like a prize tuber and deserves a period in the stocks for the way he has gone about his business at Manchest… okay, he didn’t say quite all of that.

Anyway, it was another sign, I suppose, that Mourinho Part II: Return of the Special One is supposed to have a more restrained and pious mood to it than his first, brash, brilliant spell at the club. “I’m a bit shy,” he said, and although he was talking specifically about the way Chelsea’s fans greeted him yesterday, it might as well have been a motto for his new reign. The Special One is The Shy One.

We’ll see how long it lasts. Everyone knows that Jose is really about as shy as one of those birds you get going on Big Brother, who totters into the house wearing nothing but a gold bikini, blue body paint and their hair extensions.

On the other hand, Mourinho is an old pro and an accomplished performer. He is an entertainer — and let’s not be mealy-mouthed here, he is also an astonishingly good manager, well suited to the English game and clearly deeply happy to be back at Chelsea, where they (rightly) love him. So even if his current schtick is faux humility, that’s okay. It’s still … what’s the phrase I am obliged to use here? Ah, yes: box office.

Welcome home, Jose.

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