José
Mourinho leaves Chelsea as the most successful manager in the club’s
history, having guided the team to two league championships, an FA Cup,
two League Cups and a Community Shield in his three full seasons at
Stamford Bridge.

Arriving from Porto in the summer of 2004, Mourinho, the reigning
European champion manager, proved an instant success as Claudio
Ranieri’s replacement, declaring himself as ‘a special one’ in his
first day at the club.

Things began well on the field too, with a 1-0 win over Manchester United on the opening day of the 2004/5 campaign.

The team went unbeaten for the first eight games of the season,
before a 1-0 defeat at Manchester City, the only loss in a league
campaign that brought Chelsea’s first championship in 50 years.

The final points total of 95 remains an all-time top-flight record
and we finished 12 points clear of second-placed Manchester United,
conceding just 15 goals, a Premier League record.

February of that first season also brought a League Cup triumph,
coming from behind against Liverpool to snatch victory in Cardiff, but
the Reds would get their revenge three months later, narrowly edging
Chelsea out of the Champions League at the semi-final stage, with a
goal that looked not to have crossed the line.

Mourinho was outraged, suggesting that ‘the best team lost’, and so
the controversial side of the charismatic Portuguese was visible to
all, as it had been in an earlier tie with Barcelona, although on this
occasion on the pitch, there was a happy ending when Stamford Bridge
played host to one of the most dramatic games in those first 101 years.

The Catalan giants were knocked out by a 4-2 victory on the night.

After that first, highly successful campaign and among many warnings
that retaining the title would be an even tougher task than winning it
for the first time, Chelsea got off to a flyer in Mourinho’s second
season, winning the first nine league games having not conceded in the
opening seven.

When defeat eventually arrived, the team reacted with typical
fortitude, going on another winning run that lasted 10 Premiership
games and included a first league win at Highbury for over 15 years in
our last game there.

The league was won with first place in the table never surrendered,
making Chelsea only the second team to win back-to-back titles in the
last 20 years.

Injuries to key members of the squad, including goalkeepers Petr
Cech and back-up Carlo Cudicini, as well as inspirational captain John
Terry, made last season a difficult one, where the team, Mourinho said,
had to play ’survival football’.

More goals conceded and fewer goals scored were evidence that the spark in the play seen earlier in his tenure had dimmed.

But we clinched the Carling Cup in February with victory over
Arsenal, followed by the FA Cup at Wembley in May, the last remaining
English domestic trophy Mourinho had sought. He maintained his
remarkable run of never being beaten in the league at the Bridge, a
sequence still intact on the day of departure.

During the summer just gone, the manager promised a more mellow
Mourinho, but the start of the new campaign followed on from the last
with injuries again striking and top form proving elusive.

By beginning his fourth season here, it had become his longest stay
at any club but after three games without a win, Mourinho and Chelsea
Football Club agreed it was in the best interests of both parties for
him to move on.