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Jose Mourinho is a man widely respected in football and he is put on the same pedestal as some of the best to manage a club, if not above. He has had an illustrious career where not worrying about who he was offending was extremely helpful.
His ways were unconventional and his football philosophy was not always so graceful and entertaining. But Jose Mourinho knew one thing and he was pretty darn good at it, winning. He heralded the Roman Abramovich era at Chelsea into great success and helped them to major silverware.
Some believe that Jose Mourinho has attitude issues and that he is arrogant. If you have managed Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and won the domestic leagues everywhere, why wouldn't you be arrogant?
Naturally, as Jose Mourinho went to these clubs and built a team with a winning pedigree, he recruited talent from in and around Europe to go from strength to strength. But he was only human after all, and he made mistakes. Some of the players he signed were really below the standards of the club he was in charge of.
Jose Mourinho made some atrocious signings
They could hardly pose a challenge to the first-team regulars and stayed away on loan or were sold at the first opportunity. Interestingly, there were also players who weren't even signed by Jose Mourinho but are still attributed as his signings.
For example, someone like Papy Djilobodji, who signed for Chelsea from Nantes for £4m was kept off this list. The Chelsea boss confessed to reporters that the signing of Djilobodji was not sanctioned by him. But hey, even if we give him that concession, he's still made plenty of woeful signings. Here are the five worst signings made by Jose Mourinho in his managerial career:
#5 Fabio Coentrao
We have all seen him in the Real Madrid squad in multiple versions of the FIFA game and always wondered does this guy really play for them. Well, apparently he did, all thanks to Jose Mourinho. The deal cost Los Blancos €30 million in 2011 for a man who was always going to be Marcelo's back-up.
The Portuguese left-back never showcased that he had a very high ceiling but was still somehow considered well at Real's level. Time passed and Fabio Coentrao didn't seem to be developing and he remotely maintained the same level. To the contrary, he was regressing and hardly felt inspired on the pitch.
The deal went from bad to worse on so many levels as Coentrao made only 89 appearances for the club. In 2013, Jose Mourinho returned to Chelsea, but Real were stuck with the Portuguese left-back on their wage list until they decided to terminate his contract in 2018.
#4 Shaun Wright-Phillips
It's pretty disappointing when you see glimpses of a great player in the making and those glimpses go on reducing from time to time. They suddenly appear and then go back to rest again. Shaun Wright-Phillips was a promising young player when signed by Chelsea in 2005.
Jose Mourinho's winger will best go down and be recalled as a misfired shot by the Portuguese. Wright Phillips had speed, and he had impressive amounts of it. But Jose Mourinho should have realized that the winger would have to play against his natural game to fit into Chelsea's system and his philosophy.
The former Manchester City man clearly struggled to replicate his performances with consistency. Even at the time of his signing, his goal return wasn't quite as exceptional as spending a fee as huge as that.
In his previous two Premier League campaigns, he had managed seven and 11 goals in 34 and 33 games respectively. He signed for Chelsea on those credentials and only turned poor. In 125 appearances, Phillips only found the back of the net 10 times for Jose Mourinho's team.
#3 Baba Rahman
As we continue on our list and move forward, Chelsea fans must think Jose Mourinho brought a lot of underwhelming players to their club. Well indeed he did and Baba Rahman is part of our list. The Portuguese was in his second spell with the Blues and had signed a four-year contract in August 2015 with the Blues.
If Jose Mourinho had known he would be off to a horror start and leave Chelsea in December that year, he wouldn't have dished out £23 million on Baba Rahman, never. An injury prone player, it was very difficult for the Ghana international to establish momentum with the first team.
He felt a little behind Premier League standards as well, but there wasn't enough fitness to keep him running to match standards. At 26, he should be entering the prime of his career and playing regular football for a European club's first team. At least that's the desire, but he's playing for Chelsea under 23s. Oh Jose Mourinho, look what you did, left him on his own while you went to Manchester United.
In his first season, he made 15 appearances and was able to throw in tackles to protect the defensive line from the leftback position. Managers changed, loan spells occurred but Baba Rahman remained a figure lost in oblivion. Quite remarkably, he is still contracted to Chelsea and has made 10 appearances on loan at Reading this season.
#2 Mateja Kezman
One thing is for sure, Mateja Kezman loved his time at Chelsea. He was quoted as saying: "But the transfer to Chelsea made my dreams come true. That was the best thing that ever happened to me." Oh how the Chelsea faithful wish they could say the same, but they couldn't!
Jose Mourinho was kind of faultless maybe with this one, but the steep decline was so bad that this had to be right up there with his worst signings. Didier Drogba and Kezman both played as strikers for Jose Mourinho at Chelsea, and that is the first and last thing they have in common.
Seven goals in 41 appearances for £5 million in 2004 that does not seem very bad. Except it was the goal return of a striker who, with Dutch side PSV Eindhoven, scored 105 times in 122 appearances. He stayed in Jose Mourinho's camp for only one season as the Portuguese realized that Kezman did not have it in him to deal with Premier League defenses.
#1 Asier Del Horno
We reckon Jose Mourinho's reluctance to invest in one-season wonders must have started from here. Asier Del Horno was a bright left-back at Athletic Bilbao who went on to make nearly 140 appearances for them. He was known for being a threat going forward and was pretty useful in the final third.
Jose Mourinho put in an effort to bring Ashley Cole in from Arsenal but that was delayed by a year, so the temporary fix was Del Horno. However, when Chelsea splashed around £10 million on the Spanish, it was thought that he could be a good long term option, except he wasn't.
He came on the back of a successful season where he scored three goals in La Liga and assisted another four. Although he was good at going forward, his ability to defend was always questionable and he frequently put in reckless tackles in panic.
He made 25 appearances for Chelsea in his first season and even won the Premier League. However, with Ashley Cole's arrival, there was no way Jose Mourinho was going to persist with a risky figure in defense like that. Del Horno is best known from his Chelsea days for hacking a 17-year old Lionel Messi and getting a red card. Good riddance to Jose Mourinho!
