Call Jose ugly, he couldn't care less

SINGAPORE - Jose Mourinho's haggard appearance summed up his Chelsea side. He was weak, scruffy and unshaven and looked as if he'd spent the previous night sleeping under Stamford Bridge.

He wasn't beautiful, but he was the best man on show. For the Portuguese pragmatist, that's really all that matters.

At Anfield, he showed once again that he's not a dedicated follower of fickle football fashions, but an ardent admirer of the game's annals. Beauty is skin-deep, but trophies stir the soul.

In the opposing dugout, Brendan Rodgers was characteristically resplendent in sharp suit with matching club crest and tie. But Mourinho demonstrated that his old apprentice had borrowed the Emperor's New Clothes for the big occasion.

Rodgers was all dressed up, but his Liverpool side had nowhere to go.

For all their attacking artistry this season, the Reds' famed forward line chipped away at Chelsea's protective walls like Tim Robbins' prisoner using stolen cutlery to escape his cell in The Shawshank Redemption.

But Robbins had years to break free from prison. Liverpool had only 90 minutes and proved to be prisoners of their manager's rhetoric.

Before and after the contest, Rodgers reiterated his attacking philosophy and his steadfast refusal to replicate Mourinho's spoiling tactics to stifle opponents and snatch three points on the counter-attack.

Such principles are undoubtedly laudable. Liverpool still lead the way playing a breathtaking brand of quick, penetrative, overlapping football which has won them many friends.

But Chelsea won the three points.

Despite being woolly-headed with flu, Mourinho's thinking was typically clear.

If he wanted friends, he'd spend more time on Facebook. Instead, he devoted all his depleted energy on stopping the league's most rampant goal-scorers, again.

BEATEN BOTH RIVALS

The Blues have beaten both Liverpool and Manchester City home and away this season. The bigger the game, the better his tactical telekinesis appears to be.

At Anfield, he controlled the movement of others by thought and process.

The Blues wasted Liverpool's most precious commodity from the first whistle: Time. Mark Schwarzer spent more time on the ball than Luis Suarez.

If the rushed error came from Steven Gerrard's boot, the uncomfortable, destabilising strategy came from the sick man in the visitors' dugout.

Mourinho made them pay by not letting them play.

During the game, Chelsea's stifling approach smacked of anti-football hypocrisy; an unsightly spectacle so often criticised by Mourinho when he's up against the likes of West Ham and Crystal Palace.

On reflection, the Blues' defensive brilliance merits a more measured response. Their Serbian shield in midfield again underscored why Mourinho's brief shopping spree in January was so productive.

Nemanja Matic matched both Joe Allen and Lucas Leiva. He cut the communication between midfield and the front three, leaving Suarez and Raheem Sterling in the wilderness.

Ashley Cole looked like a cross between a bearded lady and a Greek god, but displayed the power and insight of the latter to support the surprisingly effective Tomas Kalas in a makeshift back four.

Never one for managerial masochism, Mourinho did not intend to commit football suicide against the Premier League leaders anymore than he plans to offer up sacrifices for La Liga's leading lights.

SHUT-OUTS

Chelsea have so far consigned Diego Costa and Luis Suarez to the role of harmless bystander - with no goals conceded - and will attempt to repeat the trick a third time when they host Atletico Madrid on Thursday morning.

Mourinho does not advocate negative football. He didn't at Real Madrid, he doesn't at Chelsea. His preference for inverted wingers unleashes Eden Hazard and Oscar to do as they please when they're fit and available.

Arsenal alone have six reasons to reject claims of anti-football at the Bridge.

Mourinho advocates winning football, with all its positive and negative connotations.

His philosophy is not flowery, but it's always fluid. Pragmatism trumps principles every time.

He's the most malleable of managers. He simply doesn't believe it's possible to build an idealistic, all-terrain dream machine to ride roughshod over everything in its path.

So he tinkers. He changes. He reconfigures for different surfaces, environments and obstacles.

Mourinho is wily enough to recognise that he can't always change the world, but he can temporarily control it; just as he did so successfully at Anfield.

He adapted. Rodgers didn't. Atletico can't say they haven't been warned.

REMAINING GAMES

LIVERPOOLPts: 80, Goal difference: +50 l v C Palace (May 5, A) l v Newcastle (May 11, H)

CHELSEA Pts: 78, Goal difference: +43 l v Norwich (May 4, H) l v Cardiff (May 11, A)

MAN CITY Pts: 77, Goal difference: +58 l v Everton (May 3, A) l v Aston Villa (May 7, H) l v West Ham (May 11, H)

PREMIERSHIP When a team defends well, you call it a defensive display. When a team defends badly and concedes two or three goals, you don't consider it a defensive display. - Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho, who was (above) riling up Steven Gerrard by keeping the ball after it had gone out of play, (left) passing instructions to Ashley Cole and (far left) celebrating with their fans

This article was published on April 29 in The New Paper.

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