Manchester United players can count themselves lucky to avoid the ferocious treatment dished out by Jose Mourinho in the dressing room. The Red Devils have endured a difficult season and suffered their 15th Premier League loss of the campaign in a 1-0 defeat at home to Wolves on Sunday.
Ruben Amorim lamented his side’s inability to find the back of the net after the game, but will have spared his United team the same behaviour displayed by his fellow Portuguese coach.
Former Chelsea and Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech has lifted the lid on how Mourinho would react by throwing food and other items around the changing room when his team was underperforming.
However, Amorim is reported to have banned food from the locker room on matchdays after implementing several strict measures when he joined United in November. It means the United squad will be safe from any low-flying protein bars, despite their lowly position in 14th in the Premier League table.
Cech described the angry scenes which often erupted at Chelsea during an interview on former United goalkeeper Ben Foster‘s ‘Fozcast‘ podcast. Despite admitting that Mourinho’s outbursts were sometimes unpleasant to witness, Cech insisted he was a master of knowing when to dish out tough love and when to remain calm to get the best out of his team.
“It was not exactly the hairdryer, but you could feel it when he was happy and when he was not happy,” Cech said. “There was a table in the middle where you had snacks, drinks, electrolytes and all the supplements.
“Sometimes these things were flying everywhere, because when he got upset, he got upset. When he got upset, and he didn’t like somebody’s performance, you could hear it. It would come out and it would not come out in a nice way.
“The good part is that it comes out and then it’s gone. It happens a lot of times in football that you have an argument, or something happens and everything boils over.
“But then you go back to what you need to do. Sometimes it would not be as much that he would yell at you – he would just ignore you. It was even worse, but he didn’t have to do it too often.”
He added: “He was brilliant at half time. He knew exactly how to put people in the right place at the right time, and he knew exactly when to rip into the team. Sometimes we would walk in and we thought, ‘oh my god, he’s gonna kill us’.
“Then he walked in and he said, ‘well, I actually like it. You are struggling but still managing to get a result, and if you make these changes, it’ll be fine’. He knew exactly what to say and it was his really big strength.”
Another former Chelsea player who has previously shed light on what Mourinho was like behind closed doors is John Obi Mikel. The midfielder confirmed Cech’s account of the manager’s fiery temperament in an interview with Malaysian broadcaster Stadium Astro.
Mikel said: “I remember when he was younger and he’d come in the dressing room, and the table, he used to fling it and throw it. The walls were all stained and he’d say to us, ‘you have to fix that, make sure you pay for it’.
“This is how he got us to win games, this is how he got us to perform better. Every manager has a different way of motivating his players. For Mourinho, that was his style.
“When he came back the second time, he knew that we were much older, we were much more experienced players, we weren’t the kids he left behind back then, and he treated us with respect.”
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