Portuguese’s name should be mud for allowing the Premier League’s three best players at the moment to slip through the Stamford Bridge net. Another Chelsea talent drain must not be allowed to happen
Dick Rowe, the head of A&R at Decca Records in the 60s, was a kingmaker in the music industry. He signed the Rolling Stones in 1963, gave Van Morrison his break and launched the career of Tom Jones. But Rowe isn’t really known for any of these coups. He’s the idiot who rejected the Beatles. “We don’t like their sound,” it’s said that he told their manager, Brian Epstein. “And guitar music is on the way out.” Decca offered a contract to Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead.
There are similar oversights in all creative industries. Sport is no exception: what, for example, if there was someone who managed to let the three best players in today’s Premier League slip through their fingers? A person who did the equivalent of rebuffing the Beatles, the Stones and the Kinks. That guy would be a world‑class buffoon, no? His name would be a punchline. Well, there is such a man. He’s called José Mourinho.
Related: José Mourinho is growing restless in Pep Guardiola’s shade | Daniel Taylor
He’s like the dipsy pater familias at a family gathering where everyone knows he’s frittered away the inheritance
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