If José Mourinho’s football had been as dramatic and exciting as the manner of his departure, he would still be manager of Chelsea this morning.

That was Mourinho’s great irony. In person, he was challenging, entertaining, fiery, passionate, bold, outspoken, a man who would say the unsayable and not think twice about it, who could turn the cut and thrust of question and answer into a verbal battleground, explosions and casualties everywhere.

Had he taken that charisma on to the football pitch, he would have had a job for life spending the money of Roman Abramovich. Yet something happened to Mourinho when he took his personality into the sporting arena. He became another person: cautious, pragmatic, conservative. He talked like the last gunslinger in town and sent his team out with all the abandon of a junior accountant, Swindon branch.

Last night, in a flurry of text messages, he said goodbye to his senior players and was gone, a typically theatrical gesture leaving mysteries over whether he fell or was pushed, or whether in classic Mourinho fashion he made an incendiary statement from which there was no way back. Sadly, the manner of his departure sums up the malaise that has affected Stamford Bridge for far too long. For almost a year, the most exciting thing about Chelsea has been what Mourinho will do next.

In all truthfulness, this parting could have happened on any night this year. The worst-kept secret in football has been the deterioration of the relationship between manager and owner.

Abramovich’s demands are simple. He wants his players to win every trophy in sight, while balancing the ball on their noses like sea lions. He does not just want champions. He wants champions who entertain, who thrill and exhilarate in the manner of Arsène Wenger’s unbeaten Arsenal. He picked the wrong manager, then.

Mourinho was never going to be that guy. He built an excellent FC Porto team on the ethos of hard graft, good organisation and no stars. He had stars at Chelsea, but they were stars he had created, such as John Terry and Frank Lampard, players who grew in stature under his guidance. When he was given other famous names, such as Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack, his discomfort was obvious. There was only one marquee name required as Stamford Bridge, and it was his. The star was his philosophy, the methods and game plan he set out before the season began and rigidly adhered to throughout the campaign.

Terry said that Mourinho did all his work in three weeks of pre-season, telling the players that they must memorise the strategies now because there would be no time for revision when the matches were coming thick and fast. Anyone who forgot, Terry said, was out. This made for a fantastically disciplined team; it made for a Chelsea team who won back-to-back titles and, on their day, were a Terminator-like force, relentlessly moving through the Premier League; but it did not make for the fantasy that Abramovich demanded. Chelsea crushed opposition like Soviet tanks rolling into Budapest. Abramovich is from a different age of Russia’s revolution.

The two highlights of Mourinho’s time at Chelsea are the 3-0 win over Manchester United to clinch the title in 2006 and the win over Barcelona at Stamford Bridge when Terry’s sheer determination overrode one of the goals of the season from Ronaldinho.

What will never be understood about Mourinho’s reign is why he could not trust his players to perform like that more often. On the day that Chelsea defeated United it looked as if they had turned a corner. Ricardo Carvalho broke forward from defence to score a stunning goal, the football was technically superior, high-tempo, combining the best of all worlds. Yet by the next season, even with Shevchenko and Ballack on the books, Mourinho had reverted to familiar inhibition and victory by degrees.

The casualties of his thinking are invariably the flair players. Joe Cole has never been able to relax with Mourinho in charge; Arjen Robben, one of the best wingers in the world, was sold to Real Madrid. It has taken Shaun Wright-Phillips almost two years to graduate to a place in the first team. Yet, at the World Cup finals in 2006, Chelsea players let off the leash frequently stole the show. Joe Cole was England’s best midfield player, Robben a revelation, Michael Essien a powerhouse attacking midfield player for Ghana. If the question occurred to the rest of the world, it must have occurred to Abramovich, too: what does Mourinho demand of these players that he makes them dull?

It left Mourinho vulnerable, as he has been for almost a year. Conservative winning football was just about bearable in Abramovich’s eyes; conservative losing football, of the type played by Chelsea last season and at the start of this, was unforgivable. Clearly, if Chelsea are to lose to Aston Villa or draw at home to Rosenberg, Abramovich wants them to go down giving the best show in town. It was never going to be a happy marriage: the manager who wanted to win ugly and the owner who would risk losing beautifully.

They will be better apart than together. Mourinho will be a great manager at a club where nobody is putting unrealistic demands on the day-to-day grind of winning a competition as strength-sapping as a big European League (particularly, in this case, the Barclays Premier League), while Abramovich will get a manager who will be under no illusions about the fantastic nature of what is expected.

In the end, Abramovich was not prepared to give Mourinho the autonomy he demanded and Mourinho was not prepared to compromise his blueprint for success. The amazing thing is that it lasted so long. Michael Jackson’s nuptials had more chance.

Best of the web

“Enough is enough — it’s time to sack Mourinho.”

chelseafc.com

“This miserable misfit Mourinho will not be missed. He should return to Portugal, where they like grapes — even sour ones.”

bbc.co.uk/606

“Time is running out for Mourinho. Abramovich wants more style for his money and he won’t get that with Mourinho.”

chelseafc.com

“Bill Shankly worked miracles with his Liverpool players by convincing them they were world-beaters. Mourinho has decided to do the opposite, convincing his players that they are second and third-rate ‘eggs’ who are only in the side because his regulars are injured.”

bbc.co.uk/606

“Is José capable of rebuilding a team like Fergie and Wenger have done? I think it’s a fair question to ask. All truly great managers have done it, but he hasn’t yet had to.”

chelseafc.com