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Crushing Blows For Huge Egos: Reviewing Manchester United vs. Burnley

In the second instalment of this week’s Premier League Review, we look to the recent struggles of Jose Mourinho and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
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It has become a recurring theme of Jose Mourinho's managerial career that, once he has left a club, their fortunes rapidly deteriorate. After he departed Chelsea in 2007 with two league titles and three domestic cups to his name, the monumental edifice of his success crumbled to dust in the hands of Avram Grant and Jose Felipe Scolari. When he left Inter Milan as a treble winner two years later, his colossal legacy came tumbling down, crushing a forlorn Rafa Benitez under a cascade of metaphorical masonry and debris. Mourinho has become a footballing Ozymandias, building glittering empires at clubs only to see them collapse in his wake.

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This is the cost of accommodating his prodigious ego, and the people who run football clubs fully understand that. He is a modern Napoleon, or Julius Caesar, or Alexander the Great; the force of his personality is enough to build an empire, just as said empire is doomed to fall once his charismatic leadership has come to an end. There's a problem with all this, however, and one that has become more and more apparent in recent years. Gradually, as time has gone on, the catastrophic post-Mourinho collapse has begun to encroach on his actual reign.

READ MORE: Reviewing Sunderland vs. Arsenal

Towards the end of his time at Real Madrid, Mourinho's tenure careened towards disaster. He faced rebellion in the dressing room and disdain from the crowd, ending his final season trophyless having previously delivered their first league title since 2008. On his return to Chelsea, his empire-building skills seemed to have been rediscovered, only for the whole thing to implode into farce during his third season back at Stamford Bridge. Now, at Manchester United, Mourinho is threatening to skip the stage of glorious empire altogether, and go straight to the stage of scattered ruins in the sands.

There is perhaps a sense in which Mourinho's ego has been diminished in recent years, starting with his bruising departure from Real. In his early days, it had a powerful magnetic field, and attracted silverware as a matter of course. Now, despite retaining its superficial enormity, Mourinho's ego seems to lack that same forcefulness. He preens and peacocks on the sidelines as always, but where it used to inspire his players and cow officials it now sees him unceremoniously sent to the stands in a disappointing goalless draw against Burnley.

If Mourinho is suffering from a creeping sense of personal crisis, the same could be said for his star signing. In many ways, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a personality in the Mourinho mould. Much like Mourinho, his ego seems to be diminishing in his dotage, as evidenced by his losing battle with that most prosaic of heroes, Tom Heaton, on the weekend.

When they arrived in the summer, Jose and Zlatan brought renewed hope of a golden era to Old Trafford. At the moment, it's more a case of "look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair."