The Premier League, we should never forget, is essentially the most popular soap opera in the world. Yes there’s the football, the winning and losing of matches, and that is important, but alongside it runs the constant drama, the ludicrous plots, the intrigue, the operatic farce. It is the bend of the two that has made football a global obsession. All the best soap operas require a great villain and the greatest, the Dirty Den, the Paul Robinson, the JR Ewing of football is José Mourinho.
Mourinho is 60 now, his hair white, his eyes perched above swales of shadow. The old shtick has worn a little thin. The power to predict the course of matches has deserted him. The game has moved on and so have players: he cannot, as he used to, kindle in his squads the outraged fire of the wronged avenger. He once mocked Rafa Benítez for winning the Europa League; now he celebrates winning the Conference League and was angered enough by not winning the Europa League last season that he waited for the referee Anthony Taylor in the car park after the final.
