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TSN Soccer Analyst

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Jose Mourinho doesn't want to do complicated. Leave that for the movies, he says.

"Fourth position for me is not an impossible mission. If you ask me about winning the title, I would say impossible mission," the Chelsea boss said after narrowly defeating Norwich City on Saturday.

"Maybe Tom Cruise can do it, but it's complicated."

Mourinho knows a run towards the top before the end of the season would only happen on the big screen but if his team are to make a run at a Champions League spot they need to turn the corner quickly and there is a chance they have reached the apex of such a bend already.

During a remarkable run of poor form in which the defending champions lost seven of their first 12 league matches many observers have searched for the trigger point, the moment to turn the momentum and see the Blues start a long run of consistently good performances and results.

The team headed into the recent international break with another loss, 1-0 at Stoke, but what the gap did was take the team and Jose Mourinho out of the firing line. It gave the entire club an opportunity to dust themselves down and start again. At the Britannia Stadium it was all too familiar for Chelsea, where again they probably played too well to lose and not well enough to win. The beauty of this sport is for long stretches this can happen but if you looked close enough you could see signs of significant progress even though results told a different story.

After 10 days of international duty Mourinho's men returned determined to forget the past and move forward. They returned to a club determined to do the same. In two days, two significant moments may well be looked at come May as the turning point in Chelsea's season, one on the field and one off it.

On the field it took a moment of quick thinking, Cesc Fabregas hitting a quick free kick over the top of many Norwich bystanders and to the feet of Diego Costa who turned and placed home the only goal of the game.

Off the field it took many moments of deep thinking. Chelsea Football Club have taken their fair share of beatings on the field this season and through it all the reputation of the club has also been damaged.

Some will say this is classic Mourinho, a tale we have seen before. Chelsea's early season problems have taken place on the pitch but, upon reflection, a look back at their season so far brings just as many memories of their manager's press conferences than their games.

In the book 'The Special One: The Secret World of Jose Mourinho by Diego Torres' Ferran Soriano, current executive director at Manchester City and former economic vice president of Barcelona, talks about his findings of Mourinho when Barcelona looked to replace Frank Rijkaard back in 2008.

Said Soriano: "Mourinho is a winner, but in order to win he generates a level a tension that becomes a problem. It's a problem he chooses. It's positive tension but we didn't want it."

Mourinho's press conferences have become must-watch affairs for all. Including his players.

Torres tells a story in his book that the Real Madrid players watched carefully after the manager publicly slammed one of their own, Pedro Leon. 'It was the first time the players felt their manager represented a threat. Gradually, they began to follow his every public appearance: on TV, on the web, via Twitter. They didn't miss a single appearance because they understood that in the press room a different game was being played out.'

Felipe Luis, the Brazilian left back who played under Mourinho at Chelsea last season, said during the international break: "He has his way of talking to the press, especially when the team loses, which can sometimes be damaging to certain players. Some players benefit from criticism but for others, they don't."

Yet as the club returned to Premier League duty this past weekend, it was a different man in the chain of command at Chelsea making headlines.

Step up Michael Emenalo. Never heard of him? You're not alone.

Considering he has held a very important position within one of the richest and most important clubs in the world for the past five years the biggest story around him is the fact that he was never a story.

I was having a conversation with a former Premier League player last month about Chelsea's troubles and when he brought up Emenalo's name another member of the media in our conversation had to ask who he was.

Emenalo is a 50-year-old former Nigerian international who played in a World Cup and is the current Technical Director at Chelsea. Few – if any – at the club are closer to owner Roman Abramovich and when Mourinho returned in 2013, requesting complete control, Emenalo's offer to resign was denied by the Russian billionaire. He is that important to the club.

If Chelsea played in North America he would be a man you will have heard from many times. As Major League Baseball gets set for its winter meetings in early December it will the club's GM's that will be working closely with agents and each other putting together the talent for the upcoming season. Listen and watch any coverage of this sport in its offseason and it is the brains behind the franchise, no matter what their positions are in the club hierarchy, that do interviews and put forward the club's vision and ideas. Managers still speak but it's very often reserved for on-field questions and they will always defer to upper management for topics such as payroll and recruitment.

Football has always been different but it doesn't have to be and Chelsea appears to have recognized this.

In a week that would end with Fabregas setting up Diego Costa the club set up an interview between the Daily Telegraph and Emenalo. Rightly so, the biggest story out of the piece was the backing of Mourinho from ownership but Emenalo had many other words of significant interest.

"As one of the big football clubs in the world, we understand that we have a responsibility to greater society and the football world," Emenalo said. "To represent ourselves with a certain responsibility and he [Abramovich] takes that very, very seriously. He demands that we must behave in a way that justifies our elevated status. That is important to him; I can assure you that from having a knowledge of his feelings. We definitely make an effort as well as any club to make sure the club is represented very well. That is what he wants."

It's a message similar to the one Soriano spoke of when at Barcelona. The book 'BARCA: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World' by Graham Hunter tells the story of how club's vice-president Marc Ingla and director of football, Txiki Begiristain, met Mourinho in a secret Lisbon location to interview him for the job.

Soriano told Hunter: "Marc said that Mourinho spoke 90% of the time and didn't listen. He said 'I just don't like him'.

'Begiristain feared that Mourinho felt he was more than the club,' wrote Hunter.
'He was 100% sure that Barca would have trained well, played decent, if pragmatic, football and won trophies under Mourinho. However, he was equally sure that these would become pyrrhic victories compared with what Mourinho would cost the board, the international brand and a host of other intangible concepts that the club saw as intrinsic'.

Emenalo's recent comments along with Mourinho's recent behavior shows just how intuitive the Barcelona executives were at the time.

"It can be unwanted attention but it is also couched in circumstances that are unfair to Jose," Emenalo told the Telegraph when asked about Mourinho's behavior. "We have to be capable and honest enough to say that Jose has had unfair responsibility in dealing with some of the things we perceive to be injustice. Maybe we have to find a better way to help him, to work with him, a better way within the hierarchy, myself, the chairman [Bruce Buck] in presenting our case."

It is one thing for Emenalo and Chelsea to recognize this internally but to share this with us shows that the club, including Mourinho, could feel a new tactic is required.

Mourinho is obsessed with the message that comes out of the club and has, in the past, always been the one to deliver it leaving his clubs to deal with the consequences.

"We recognize that and we have to find a way to help him out in those situations," admitted Emenalo who for Chelsea's sake is likely to be heard from much more in the future.

Only time will tell if his assist and the one by Fabregas to his Spanish team-mate can help turn the tide on Chelsea's season but now we know Chelsea have publicly stated what Barcelona said many years ago. They are aware of the damage to the club Mourinho's mouth can do. Stopping it completely will be mission impossible but for the relationship to continue like a Hollywood love story it is clear changes need to take place. Chelsea have made their move, the rest is up to Mourinho himself.

Catch Chelsea in Champions League action live on TSN5 this Tuesday from 2pm est as they visit Maccabi Tel Aviv and in the Premier League on Sunday morning from 7am est as they high-flying Tottenham Hotspur.