Mourinho proving a difficult act to follow

PREMIER LEAGUE: With Guus Hiddink only a stop-gap appointment, Roman Ambramovich still has a key problem

FUNNY THINGS, relationships. Not funny, ha ha; more Adam Sadler funny, generating the sort of rueful, hollow laughs which come inflected by a palpable sense of grief at seeing precious time slip away forever. Anyone who has seen Daddy Day Careshould be nodding sagely at this point.

If you think this is utterly irrelevant in the context of Premier League football, then shame on you. Of all the metaphors that could be deployed in describing the relationship between a chairman and a manager, that of a turbulent marriage is by far the most apt, especially in these fevered times.

Both start with overt displays of affection and proclamations of commitment, which quickly give way to silly rows over things like neglecting to keep your slippers on the shoe rack or refusing to play Luka Modric “in the hole”. Then, after periods of long, frosty silence, comes the inevitable divorce and courtroom settlement.

Even romance’s subtler nuances are reflected in the glittering, oily world of England’s top flight. Take one of love’s bitterest, kick-you-in-the-crotch ironies: that only when a beloved has been utterly expunged from the affections do the creeping doubts set in. Then, for all the memories of screaming, wailing and arsenic-in-the-casserole, there can be no shaking the sweaty sensation that splitting up was a horrible, horrible mistake.

As a man who has gone through two painful and damaging divorces, Roman Abramovich will know exactly what this feels like. The first, in March 2007, was to his ex-wife, Irina, and cost $2.5 billion; the second, six months later, was to Jose Mourinho.

And while Roman seems to have forgotten Irina, if the pictures of him canoodling with his new girlfriend are anything to go by, it has proved harder to move on at Chelsea.

It could hardly have been otherwise, given it was not simply Mourinho’s on-field achievements which left an indelible impression. Abramovich, in true love-lorn fashion, might have stripped Stamford Bridge of all traces of his old flame, but it has been more tricky to banish the memories of Mourinho’s sheer force of personality.

None of his successors have brought closure. Avram Grant was the classic rebound relationship, the kind of mistake which is instantly regretted the following morning; then came the vain attempt at settling down with another temperamental Latino, Luiz Felipe Scolari – Mourinho with a bus pass. Unsurprisingly, that failed, too.

Now Abramovich has turned to Guus Hiddink, a sort of managerial booty call – always available, always willing and always guaranteed to deliver. Both are currently enjoying the fling, with Hiddink having produced three wins out of three, but neither expect it to last.

Nor, you suspect, would they want it to. Abramovich has no wish to jeopardise the fortunes of the Russian national team, Hiddink’s other job, while the latter comes across as far too too sensible to want to become embroiled in the bitter political squabbles and alpha-male posturing that are a regular feature of life in SW6 and which Mourinho revelled in.

Hiddink must also realise how quickly he would tire of constantly being compared to a man who now left Chelsea 17 months ago.

English football’s obsession with Mourinho knows no bounds: journalists and his old Chelsea players go misty-eyed at the memories of his often brilliant, and occasionally ludicrous, antics and the excitement at his Internazionale side confronting Manchester United in the Champions League could barely be contained.

Abramovich might just have been the exception to that rule. Nobody likes seeing their ex flaunting themselves before a goggle-eyed public and Mourinho’s press conferences in the build-up to last week’s game at San Siro were the equivalent of an old girlfriend posting photos of herself on Facebook wearing fish-net stockings and a low-cut top.

All of Mourinho’s most endearing habits were on show – the bullish self-belief, the sly psychological digs – but, before Roman reaches for the phone and sends an ill-advised late-night text, he should remember why he dumped the Portuguese in the first place.

Mourinho is already exhausting the patience of his new employers, having sparked a raft of spats with rival clubs and the press in his nine-month tenure.

His team are winning, in the usual grinding, graceless manner, but last week’s encounter with United suggested he had little idea how to counter a team of real continental class, with Alex Ferguson’s cavaliers only denied a hefty first-leg lead by their own wastefulness.

All of that should be nagging away at the back of Abramovich’s mind as he contemplates who might be worthy of his affection on a permanent basis in the summer. Just remember, Roman, you should never go back. There’s someone out there for everyone – even you.