Jose Mourinho to Manchester United: The Special One is rapidly becoming The Forgotten One

The silence has been golden. No infantile bickering, casual slander or calculated bullying. No multimedia migraine triggered by Jose Mourinho’s response to the respect afforded Arsène Wenger. The stage-managed spite was tiresome and ultimately counterproductive.

Chelsea supporters observing tribal convention at the Emirates today will doubtlessly sing their former manager’s name in a Pavlovian howl of misplaced loyalty, but it will have a hollow echo. The significance of Arsenal’s opportunity to succeed their club as Premier League champions is inescapable.

Wenger’s authority, underlined by the amplification of whispers that he is set to extend his influence with a new two-year contract, mocks his tormentor’s marginalisation. Mourinho’s unchallenged credibility as a coach was compromised by the caricature he became before his sacking.

He has been airbrushed from history at Stamford Bridge with Stalinist efficiency and is hardly missed, even in a world conditioned to genuflection before celebrity. We are spared the ritual in which every public utterance is scrutinised for hidden meaning, like the hieroglyphics on a Pharaoh’s tomb.

Chelsea players respected his attention to detail but tired of his use of them as human shields for his reputation. When an advocate like Frank Lampard concludes his downfall was the inevitable outcome of a lack of communication, the myth of creative tension as a managerial tool is exposed.

Consequently, Chelsea’s season is in ruins. Mourinho, last seen shopping in Shanghai, has been heard endorsing a centre-right candidate for today’s Portuguese presidential election. Yet since a statement issued through his agents, that to all intents and purposes announced his intention to walk around Old Trafford with a sandwich board proclaiming his availability for work, he has remained mercifully mute in football terms.

His attempt to restore a degree of gravitas, through a dossier outlining his strategic plans for Manchester United, suggests reality may just be starting to bite. His options appear to have vanished as quickly as summer dew.

The perception that Mourinho’s installation as successor to Louis Van Gaal would be an insult to the remnants of United’s tradition looks to have taken hold. The noise around him is too discordant, too distracting.

Bayern Munich chose the emollient, emotionally intelligent Carlo Ancelotti to replace Pep Guardiola, who is unlikely to forget Mourinho’s slur that the kit man could win the Bundesliga for the Bavarian giants.

Zinedine Zidane, a prince regent but a relative novice, was preferred by Real Madrid. Barcelona will not offer their former translator house room. Mourinho’s achievements with Internazionale were sullied by the toxicity of his presence; Serie A is, in any case, becoming a backwater.

Paris Saint-Germain’s vaulting ambition and unlimited budget seem suited to the Portuguese coach and his rapacious agent, Jorge Mendes, but the inconvenient truth of Laurent Blanc’s success there is likely to be reinforced by the offer of a new contract.

The theory that the grubby opportunism of West Ham’s move to the Olympic Stadium offers a potential refuge is undermined by Slaven Bilic’s unexpected impact. The intermittent challenges of international management would probably frustrate rather than inspire.

Modern management is so consuming Guardiola feels it will have exhausted him by his 50th birthday. Mourinho’s wilfully confrontational style, in an environment which demands ceaseless evolution rather than convulsive revolution, exacerbates emotional damage and creates unnecessary problems.

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His influence is contemporary, since it has been acknowledged at Wenger’s expense this weekend by Patrick Vieira, but it is waning. After winning six league titles and two Champions Leagues in his first eight seasons, Mourinho has won only two league titles since 2010.

The TV studios beckon. He will create a stir, but evoke little sympathy. His development into a superannuated version of Robbie Savage may be inopportune, but it is hardly inappropriate.

Maybe Conor McGregor holds up a mirror to show us who we really are, what we have become. He is in the process of becoming bigger than his so-called sport, which trades on the vicarious thrill of theatrical brutality. UFC is a modern commercial phenomenon, and the Irish fighter’s capacity to inflict stylised violence on his opponents promises to make him one of the world’s richest athletes. His self-proclaimed ambition to earn a minimum of $100 million seems uncharacteristically restrained.

But what is the hidden cost of such success, when his instinct is to blaspheme and demean? If Tyson Fury is rightly taken to task for the abhorrence of his views, why should McGregor be excused his excess?

His latest brand-building exercise involved glamourising the Mexican gang leader El Chapo, and boasting of his intention to drag the severed head of Rafael dos Anjos, his next opponent, through the streets.

His crass attention-seeking also involved the suggestion that “me and Jesus are cool. Gods recognise Gods.” All grist to the mill of pay-per-view sales, sadly, since trash-talking is the soundtrack of sport for this generation, and beyond.

Never meet your heroes, they say. I have only ever requested two autographs in my working life: one was from Nelson Mandela, the other from Pele.

Mine was one of millions of childhoods illuminated by the Brazilian’s brilliance. Now we are older, sadder and theoretically wiser, romantic illusions are unsustainable.

Pele’s shamelessness in exploiting his reputation has plunged new depths, since he has made a 253-page pitch to be a “humanitarian ambassador” for the Qatar World Cup.

The subtext, that he is ready to sell his soul for suitably lavish reward, is too depressing for words. The feet which once danced across a football pitch now trample on our dreams.