Jose Mourinho told to consider retiring by Chelsea icon after 'losing humility'
Chelsea legend Marcel Desailly says it could be time for Jose Mourinho to retire, claiming he is losing his humility. It's 21 years since the Portuguese coach swept into Stamford Bridge to begin an unprecedented era of success for the Blues.
Following a second stint at Chelsea and spells with Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Roma, Mourinho has just completed his first season in charge of Fenerbahce, who finished a distant second to bitter rivals Galatasaray in the Turkish Super Lig. At 62, he is still making headlines for his touchline antics and outspokenness to the media.
However, it has now been a decade since Mourinho last won a league title - in 2015 during his second spell at Chelsea - and there are question marks over whether his best days are in the rearview mirror. That view is held by Desailly, who has the utmost respect for Mourinho but believes his approach has changed for the worse.
'We have loved him so much as a coach and he has nothing left to prove,' Desailly, who left Chelsea the summer Mourinho arrived at Stamford Bridge, told Oddspedia US.
'He is a top coach like Carlo Ancelotti, Luis Enrique and others, he will have to sit down and decide what he wants. He could set his ego down and restart the system that he wants to play.
'When he started coaching he had so much humility, players that played under him told me how fantastic a coach he was. Players wanted to fight and would die for him. He gave every single member of his team momentum and a chance to impress him.
'But he has changed. In the media, instead of protecting his players, he isn't scared to call them out. His training sessions haven't created motivation and competition among players.
'He has dropped the aspect of humility, he missed out on the title at Fenerbahce and he will need that to get back to the level he was at before. If he has more humility then the good side of Mourinho will return. We all love him as a manager but he used to protect his players and he has lost a bit of that.'
While Desailly never played under Mourinho at Chelsea, the pair parted on good terms. At the age of 35, the French World Cup-winner felt it was time to move on.
He told footballmadeinghana.com in 2020: 'I could have stayed but was already 35. I spoke to Mourinho and he wanted me to stay. He told me I'm the leader and I will not be playing all the games because John Terry and William Gallas were better than me.
'I told him I wanted to go. That is why I ended up in Qatar [with Al-Gharafa] because I wanted to play football.'
Desailly, now 56, moved on to Qatar SC in 2005 before hanging up his boots the following year.
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