"It's something personal," muttered Ruud Gullit in a conspiratorial tone.
On first glance it would appear that with Oscar, Willian, Andre Schürrle, Eden Hazard and Kevin de Bruyne greasing Chelsea's flanks, Mourinho is simply ostracising Mata because he can, a self-aggrandising act with all the ostentation of the millionaire playboy setting light to a wad of banknotes in the VIP area of a nightclub, in full view of his peers and in direct contravention of fire safety regulations.
Mourinho, it has to be said, has done little to douse this myth. Speaking to Sky after the game, he embarked on an illuminating yet wildly unfocused 10-minute monologue, explaining his reasons for picking Oscar over Mata, touching on a number of discordant themes and ending with his now-familiar claim to divine prerogative. "You are paid to have an opinion," he said. "I think you are very good. But Chelsea manager is Jose Mourinho, not Jamie Redknapp." Yet perhaps something more prosaic lies behind all this. Earlier this year, Mourinho turned 50. Hitting the half-century does curious things to a man.
It is mortality's alarm call, turning the mind to thoughts of posterity and one's place in the world. It is surely no coincidence that recent weeks have seen the arch-pragmatist soften his approach, as he seeks to bequeath Chelsea an artistic legacy that coincidentally will also stand as an insoluble monument to his own genius.
"Your business doesn't finish the day you leave," he said last week. "Your business finishes the day everything you did disappears."
All the hallmarks of a formative mid-life crisis are in place: an impulsive thirst for change, a fixation on youth ("beautiful young eggs"), and a borderline-paranoid envy of what he can no longer have. With his twinkling feet, cheeky grin, effortless talent, languid demeanour and designer stubble, Mata presents a picture of perfect timelessness at the point when Mourinho is most keenly aware of the ticking clock.
Jettisoning him is the equivalent of an ageing king banishing a dashing nobleman from his court, just in case the wife gets any naughty ideas. If this sounds wildly fanciful, then his treatment of the equally handsome Iker Casillas at Real Madrid provides cast-iron precedent.
Not that any of this will provide much consolation to Mata, now condemned to a long season of humiliation, inertia, aimless training sessions, League Cup ties and tracking back to cover the runs of second-rate full-backs.
Before long, barring a sudden change in the weather, he will probably be lost to English football forever: the eligible young thane of the final third cast into exile, for the simple crime of being too pretty by half.
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