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The controversy that seems to surround Jose Mourinho is simply a product of today's highly charged Premiership atmosphere. Now that the premiership has become an enormous business, often profitable, more often not, the interest in the man who is, theoretically at least, in control of where the vast sums of money are spent, is somewhat understandable. Jose Mourinho changed the Premiership when he arrived in the summer of 2004. He's been described as a breath of fresh air' by some, arrogant' by others, but few can deny that life is ever dull in Chelsea's enormous bubble of a world in which they're courted, reviled and applauded daily and at great length by the media.

Now it seems as though Jose's days are numbered. People have tired of the special one (is there a need for inverted commas anymore?) and the only thing more interesting than seeing a man with power and wealth come in and spend vast sums of money without a care in the world, is seeing this man, Roman Abramovich, becoming disillusioned with the staff his championship winning side employ. How amusing it has become to envision the power struggle between the frankly enormous number of suits' behind the Chelsea team.

People seem to long for the game of years gone by when a tackle was a tackle, when men were men and the yellow card stayed in its pocket for nothing less than a battering; when managers where men who courted the publicity of the press and reeled off one-liners to the delight of the hacks lucky enough to be in the vicinity to hear them. The days of the legendary Bill Shankly stories are filled with enough humour off the pitch and controversy on it, that the man could be remembered fondly by almost all who knew him, or at least anyone who heard what he had to say.

Of course, those days were different. We've seen managers feud on the pitch recently but in the post-match press conferences managers have to bite their tongue to escape censure from the mighty F.A. Instead of an honest appraisal of the game, the referee, the opposing players, we get the likes of Arsene Wenger and his iconic I wasn't close enough to see the incident' routine. Harry Redknapp, Alan Curbishley, Gordon Strachan, men who admire the game with the same affection as Shankly, all try and keep the conversation jovial at the least, but football's too important for that now; a joking manager is a man who wont keep the shareholders happy, will not get the desired results because

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