6 of the biggest transfer mistakes made by Jose Mourinho in England

Jose Mourinho is often considered as one of the best modern managers in world football. He started his career as an assistant coach to Sir Bobby Robson at Barcelona and also impressed as the assistant to Louis van Gaal before taking over the reins at FC Porto where he guided them to a Champions League title.

This was when the world took notice of him and Roman Abramovich brought him to England to manage Chelsea in 2004. He took the Premier League with a storm and shook the English game with his pragmatism.

Unlike the current English game which is dependent on the flair and attacking style of football and was dominated by the likes of Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson, Mourinho focussed on winning by any means.

The backbone of his teams has always been built around a strong defence with a technically sound and physically strong player to spearhead the attack. The controversial manager though has been the subject of many controversies but his track record is proven and is something that is envied by most managers.

Mourinho is known for his keen eye in the transfer market and has unearthed many gems like Petr Cech, Diego Milito, Mesut Ozil, Angel di Maria and many more talents of professional football.

During his coaching career in England, he has managed English heavyweights like Chelsea and Manchester United for a combined for 8 years up till now. Overall he has bought or loaned 133 players in his career with 58 of them coming in his 8 years of his English coaching career.

Even after being a transfer wizard, the Portuguese has faltered in the transfer market quite a few times. In this article, we look at 5 of Mourinho's biggest transfer mistakes since setting his foot on the British shores:

#6 Radamel Falcao

Radamel Falcao was a massive flop at Chelsea

At the start of the decade, Radamel Falcao was one of the best forwards in the world of football before a serious ACL injury during the 2013/14 season at Monaco made him miss a huge chunk of football. Thus, decreasing his effectiveness in the box.

Nevertheless, Mourinho brought him on loan at Chelsea from Monaco for 2015-16 at a heavy wage of £140,000-a-week for the duration of his year in London. This cost the club a total of £7.28 million during his short stay in London.

In return, his contribution to the Chelsea team was very low as he appeared on just 10 occasions and scored a grand total of one goal. His signing in the first place seemed very puzzling as he has failed a year earlier during his loan stint at Manchester United.

#5 Andriy Shevchenko

Shevchenko won the Ballon d'Or with AC Milan

Shevchenko's transfer fee of £30.8 million was a club record as well as a national record at the time. On paper, it was also the perfect signing as in his 7-years long stint at Milan he was arguably the best all-round striker in the world.

He started his Chelsea career on a bright note, scoring in the first game itself. That was as good as it got for the Ukranian for the rest of his Chelsea career.

After that, he could only score 14 goals in 51 games which was a very disappointing return by his lofty standards. He was mostly anonymous for Chelsea and it was annoying to see him completely fail to adjust to the pace of the Premier League.

He was soon loaned off to Milan and in the subsequent season got sold to Kiev. Though, pairing him with the footballing beast called Drogba was something that many fans or analysts could not understand. Both of them were players of similar style.

#4 Mateja Kežman

Chelsea bought him with the hope of filling the role of number 9 permanently

When Mourinho bought Kezman from PSV Eindhoven for a mere amount of £5.3m he was considered by many as the signing of the season. Before the season even started, he was even being labelled as the steal of the decade.

After all, the Serbian player had scored 105 goals in his 4 previous seasons making 111 appearances in the league playing for PSV. In his previous club, his partnership with Arjen Robben caused a havoc for the rest of the Eredivisie sides. By the end of the season, it became quite evident that it was Chelsea who had been robbed.

Even the presence of his Dutch counterpart Arjen Robben at Chelsea could not help him settle at the club. He could only score 4 goals in the entire league season out of which the first goal didn't come till December.

The only highlight of the Chelsea career of his was a tiebreaker at the 2005 league cup final against Liverpool which subsequently won Chelsea the title. He was shipped off to Atletico Madrid the very next season.

#3 Kevin de Bruyne

De Bruyne is probably the best player in the Premier League currently

Kevin de Bruyne is often considered as one of the most complete footballers on the planet. He is also arguably the best footballer in the Premier League currently. He was also rated as the 4th best player by 'the Guardian' in 2017.

Well, that could have been different had Mourinho been a little patient with him during his time with Chelsea. On the winter transfer deadline day of the 2011-12 season, Chelsea bought Kevin de Bruyne for £8 million from Genk only to loan him next season to Werder Bremen for his growth. Mourinho recalled him in the 2013-14 season with plans of making him a regular in the playing line up.

Though due to injuries and some weird decision making on the management's part to play him out of position, the Belgian could not showcase his perceived potential. Although his talent was never in doubt, yet Mourinho sold him to Wolfsburg a season later for £22 million.

During his two years stay in Germany he finally gained maturity as a player. He soon established himself as one of the most promising youngsters around Europe. In the 2015-16 season, Manchester City came calling and bought him for £55 million amid speculations of interest from top clubs around Europe including Chelsea themselves.

#2 Romelu Lukaku

Chelsea has been lucky enough to always have been blessed with some top quality forwards. Amongst them, Romelu Lukaku, when signed by Chelsea from Anderlecht for €12 million in 2011, was considered by many to be the successor for Drogba, a player of a very similar style.

Lukaku was also regarded as another shining star in the long list of great forwards to have played for Chelsea. When Mourinho re-arrived at Chelsea in 2013 he immediately recognised that Chelsea needed a top drawer striker.

Instead of giving chance to a young Lukaku, he brought in a struggling Samuel Eto'o to spearhead the attack. With a struggling Torres already on the payroll, Eto'o and the less heralded, Demba Ba added to the attacking woes.

What outraged the Chelsea fans, even more, was that he even brought Didier Drogba back who was at the twilight of his career instead of giving Lukaku a chance as he loaned the Belgian to first West Brom, before permanently selling him to Everton.

Though Mourinho won the Premier League in the 2014/15 season, Lukaku's move hurt him in the long term as the big striker established himself as one of the top strikers in the game. When Mourinho overtook the Manchester United job, he signed Lukaku back for a reported fee of £75 million.

#1 Mohamed Salah

Salah signed for Liverpool at an initial transfer fee of £37.80 million from AS Roma in 2017 and he took the Premier League with a storm. He even won the PFA and PWA Player of the year awards with Liverpool.

In fact, his displays were so good for Liverpool that there were even mute voices coming from all around the world to award him the coveted Ballon d'Or award for the best player of the year.

Though the only regret Chelsea fans have is that he could have achieved all this for Chelsea. Just like Kevin de Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku, Salah was another one of the players with whom Mourinho missed the mark and created a cloud of doubt over his abilities to identify and prosper real talent.

Chelsea and Jose Mourinho had high hopes for the Egyptian dynamo Salah when he joined from Swiss side Basel for a fee worth £16m in January 2014. "He's young, he's fast, he's creative, he's enthusiastic," said Mourinho at the time. "We analysed him and he looks the kind of humble personality on the pitch, ready to work for the team and to work and to adapt himself to a new life.

Chelsea and Mourinho, who already had a few wingers in the form of Eden Hazard, Willian, Oscar and Andre Schurrle could not provide Salah with the kind of opportunities he needed to establish himself and loaned him just a year later to Fiorentina in favour of Juan Cuadrado.

This proved to be a huge mistake as Salah returned to the Premier League scored 32 goals for Liverpool.

Mourinho though has groomed many players under his abled eyes but his recent failures in recognizing the real talent are something which is probably proving to be one of the reason why is he struggling in the more recent seasons of the Premier League.

Edited by Debjyoti Samanta