Jose Mourinho has gone into battle – but will he win this latest war?

JOSE MOURINHO has had a lot to deal with over the past week.

There was the matter of defending Diego Costa’s behaviour, his retrospective banning and the FA’s overturning of Gabriel Paulista’s red card.

Then there was the departure of Dr Eva Carneiro and the subsequent outcry from various medical bodies and “women in football” groups which has led to the involvement of Portuguese-speaking lip-readers to decipher whether a word he used ended with an “o” or an “a”.

In between, he needed to fit in another round of verbals with Arsene Wenger, and proclaim that the FA are out to get him if he says anything.

It makes you wonder how he found time to get Chelsea’s season back on track.

Still, it’s all grist to the mill for the Portuguese, who doesn’t seem happy unless he’s expounding conspiracy theories and instilling siege mentalities.

Jose doesn’t do calm. For him, calm means complacency and a loss of competitive edge.

For Mourinho to function, he needs to be constantly at war. And now, after a period of relative calm, he’s in full battle mode.

He even cut his hair military style in front of the mirror at the club’s Cobham training ground to emphasise his mood.

It’s fair to say that he’s not been a happy bunny since the players returned from their summer break.

Last season, when they won two trophies, he’d managed to keep his squad close to home during pre-season and they were able to hit the ground running while rivals recovered from long-haul tours.

This summer, though, commercial requirements took Chelsea to North America, where they bizarrely based themselves in Canada and commuted to the States.

As a result, they were seriously undercooked when they began their League programme against Swansea, and it showed.

The sending off of Thibault Courtois set the tone. Mourinho’s fury at Carneiro and physio John Fearn was a consequence of his obvious frustration.

He was convinced that everyone else at the club players, the Board, the commercial department and now the medical team had taken their eyes off the ball.

That frustration only increased when the Board failed to land top transfer target, John Stones from Everton.

Pedro’s acquisition was fine, but Mourinho’s biggest concern was his defence. John Terry was beginning to look like a player approaching 35 and Branislav Ivanovic was having a nightmare.

He was made to make do with Papy Djilobodji, a little-known Senegal centre-back, and Michael Hector, who was immediately loaned back to Reading.

A manager can survive a war with the medical staff, even a battle with the Board if he’s got the security of a new four-year contract, as Mourinho has.

What he can’t survive is a war with his players as he found out at Real Madrid.

That’s why his relationship with trusty lieutenant Terry is under so much scrutiny.

Have the two fallen out? Or are they as tight as ever?

When he arrived at Stamford Bridge first time around, Mourinho cleverly made Terry and Frank Lampard his two main dressing-room allies. With them onside, the rest followed.

Terry’s “Captain, Leader, Legend” status has made him an even more influential voice at the club, especially since the departure of Lampard.

He played every League game last season, but their special relationship was put under threat when Mourinho hooked him at half-time during the defeat by Manchester City.

Since then, Terry has had to accept that he’s no longer an automatic choice. His reaction to that demotion is crucial to the dressing-room.

Mourinho takes his team back to Porto on Tuesday on Champions League business. With a substantial deficit to make up in the Premier League, it’s imperative that there are no setbacks in Europe.

When he gets to the Estadio do Draga, he will come across Iker Casillas, a man who had the sort of status at Madrid that Terry enjoys at Chelsea.

Mourinho froze him out of the team at the Bernabeu and the pair fell out big time. Crucially, influential figures in the dressing-room like Sergio Ramos and Cristiano Ronaldo were ‘Team Casillas’ and Mourinho was eventually sacked.

Mourinho has always made enemies UEFA, the FA, rival managers, the media. Lay them end to end and they’d stretch halfway around Europe.

But that’s the way he works. The more people who are against him, the more successful he’s tended to be.

And he’s rarely had more against him than he does at the moment.

But even he can’t afford to lose the unqualified backing of his players.Read more Sunday Post sports news – click here