I can’t help but feel that Chelsea Football Club has made a big mistake.

Seven months removed from winning the Premier League, Jose Mourinho has been sacked. The demise has been a while in coming now but that doesn’t make it any less unexpected. There was always a feeling that maybe he beyond reproach. I mean, any other manager wouldn’t have lasted half this long. He signed a contract extension in the English summer. Now he’s gone.

The defending Premier League champs have lost nine games from 16. Four of their last six have been defeats, including back to backs against Bournemouth and Leicester City. They saw their way into the round of 16 in the Champions League but unless they win it there’s a near impossible chance they get back there next season. Players have underperformed with incredulous regularity and there hasn’t seemed to be an answer.

But firing the manager seems rash all the same. The chances of making the top four are pretty much gone already and no new manager is gonna change that. 16 games into a 38 game season and it’s already too late. Instead they could have written this one off and focussed on letting Mourinho try win a competition in the Champions League which he has already triumphed at twice and made the semi-finals six other times. And, more importantly, given Jose the keys to the car and begun the squad overhaul in January that should have begun immediately after winning the last title. We’re talking about their all-time finest manager now, who has consistently reiterated his love for and dedication to this club even through the hard times of this season. His first tenure he felt restless, eager for new challenges. His return felt like a homecoming.

The rot set in at the end of last year. They won the title and then immediately took their foot off the pedal, two weeks after sealing the deal with a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace (Eden Hazard with the goal – one more than he’s managed all this season), they were beaten 3-0 away at West Brom. It looks like they’ve never regained that intensity.

That’s a blame that’s been attributed to Jose and his style of management. He drives the players into the ground in the name of a shared cause, he takes defeats so personally and tragically, and that kind of thing is unsustainable in the long run. And it isn’t hard to believe that once the losses start coming more regularly and Jose’s siege mentality histrionics turn into a predictable cycle… well it’s a bit like the curtain coming down on the Wizard of Oz, right?

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

There’s no magic here, just a clever illusion. It’s the kind of ordeal that all managers - even the very best - suffer eventually, and the true test of their talents is how well they can then manage with all of the mystique stripped bare. The artifice of superiority and grandiosity is why so many foreign managers are hired in the PL: the less you know about a guy beyond their many achievements, the more you can idolise them. That kind of respect requires a distance. But there is another kind of respect that runs even deeper. Sir Alex Ferguson had it. Arsene Wenger had it. Jose Mourinho, it seems, does not. His record has always spoken for itself but you wonder if his players simply called B.S. on his credibility this season.

“Sometimes I find myself thinking that last season I did such an amazing job I brought players to a level that is not their level and, if this is true, I brought them to such a level where this season they couldn’t keep the super motivation to be leaders and champions. That is one possibility.” – JM

Except that that’s letting the players off the hook. Cesc Fabregas is better than the disinterested turnstile that he’s been. Diego Costa is better than the schoolyard bully that he has become. Eden Hazard used to score goals. John Terry used to defend them. Nemanja Matic used to be this whirlwind of midfield energy and coverage. Cesar Azpilicueta, Branislav Ivanovic, Gary Cahill, Oscar, Ramires, Loic Remy… none of these guys are playing at the level that they should be. Willian has been their best player. Now, Willian is a quality squad player but that’s like asking Arsenal to win the league with Francis Coquelin as their best player. Or City with Jesus Navas. Or Manchester United with Marouane Fellaini. All decent players but a great team relies on its greatest talents.

It’s very tough for a manager and a chairman to look at a champion team and say: “Right, let’s rip this up”, but in hindsight that’s exactly what should have happened. They weren’t actually expected to win it last year anyway, and in some ways that success has clouded the fact that they were still midway between a squad shakeup. Where is John Terry’s replacement? Who is the backup striker? Where is the creativity coming from? Who is covering that midfield? Mourinho digs a squad of 22. A starting XI and a reserve for every one of them. He’s spent a lot of time ditching guys who didn’t fit in with his plans since he returned and yet hasn’t been able to replace them.

And he’s tried. Most notably in how they went after John Stones, who would have been so perfect for this team. Stones was keen enough had Everton not stuck their heels in, however you’ve gotta think that they’d have backed down if Chelsea had gone all in. As they should have. If only Abramovich could have had the hindsight of the present when making those decisions, he’d have written Jose a blank cheque. Instead their best addition was made after the season had already begun with Pedro joining having had what seemed like a sure-bet move to Man United collapse for whatever reason. Add in Radamel Falcao and his single start in 2015-16 and their two major attacking additions were Manchester United rejects (debatable in Pedro’s case, at least). Looking at how Man Utd are playing these days, that ain’t ideal.

They needed to act swiftly and decisively in the transfer market and they didn’t. What actually happened was they went to Australia and played exhibitions with a tired squad. There is a lot that has contributed to where this club is now and plenty of it isn’t Jose Mourinho’s fault. Of course, it’s much easier to sack a manager in times of trouble than anything else. I cannot imagine them finding a better manager, especially at this stage of the season, and the only reasonable cause for this decision is that he’s irreparably lost the dressing room. Which might be true. But I don’t like it. Jose Mourinho was the heart and soul of this club and he was, in his own words, “betrayed”. At board level and on the park and only some of it was his own hubris.

So what next for Mourinho now? Well in a strange way this really opens up his options. Manchester United never would have hired him when he returned to England because he was too entwined in Chelsea history – the same goes for any other top English club (and he’s not joining any one below that level). But in dismissing their best ever manager it’s like a closing of the book. They won’t rehire him any time soon, for better or for worse his time with this club is now over. Which means that if Louis Van Gaal were to get cut loose next week (0.1% chance, but still), there’s nothing stopping them giving Jose a call this time. Or maybe Real Madrid quickly shuffle out Rafa Benitez and bring back Jose. (Guus Hiddink will be CFC interim soon, btw).

Having said that, here’s where I think Mourinho’s future lies: The Portuguese National Team.  Fernando Santos is contracted ‘til the end of EURO 2016. Jose Mourinho has reportedly, due to his love of the club, refused all but one year’s compensation from Chelsea (repeat: Reportedly). That covers him for the rest of the season by when he’ll surely have his pick of several jobs. International footy could be perfect for him, with the sporadic nature of it meaning the grind won’t get to players in the same way and his intensity and Us-vs-Them way of thinking works so much better within the fog of patriotism. Plus it’d reunite him with Cristiano Ronaldo. Bingo.

But that’s for the future. In the meantime there’s some grieving to do.