Mark Cole, the BBC’s head of football, has explained why Chelsea have been first on Match Of The Day so often this season, with the reason being something that Blues fans might not be too pleased to hear.
The defending Premier League champions have endured their worst start to a top tier campaign since the 1978/1979 season, when a win was only worth 2 points. They have lost seven out of their opening twelve league fixtures, but the campaign hasn’t been boring for the neutral.
Louis Van Gaal’s Manchester United side, who have been consistently criticised for being boring, sit just two points off the Premier League summit, yet they have only been first on the BBC’s flagship football review show once and have been in the sixth slot four times.
Chelsea, meanwhile, have been first on the show hosted by Gary Lineker five times, with the Blues losing all five matches. Jose Mourinho has found himself under increasing pressure this season, with many pundits feeling as though the loss to Liverpool in the week before the international break could be the Portuguese manager’s last chance. That they went on to lose to Stoke the following week has merely added to the scrutiny the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’ is facing.
Mark Cole made an attempt to explain why Chelsea have been such good entertainment so far this season. He said, “When the champions are losing, it is always a story. Throw in a bit of Jose Mourinho and it means they are quite often in the mix around the top of the running order. We also look at the publicity side, in terms of what is going to be on the back pages of the newspapers, because that basically is what people want to see. It dominates so many of the back pages and it is something there is real interest in – what is going to happen next in the soap opera that is Jose Mourinho?”
What is going to happen next in the soap opera that is Jose Mourinho is a question that everybody would like to know the answer to. This weekend Chelsea face Norwich City at Stamford Bridge in a 3pm kick off on Saturday, with a win against the newly promoted side a must for the Portuguese manager and his team. He’ll be hoping that they will be first on Match Of The Day this weekend for all of the right reasons.