Showtime

You simply have to hand it to Jose Mourinho. As an entertainer there isn’t a Premiership manager to touch him. In fact he’s so good he can do stand up sitting down.

Take for instance the Didier Drogba affair. Poor old Didier is fed up with being called a cheat and wants to get out of Chelsea – ironically at a time when his side have just won the Premiership and he’s cleaned up his act and enhanced his reputation. What timing!

But it makes no difference, because Jose has spoken. Apparently, he can either “play with happiness”, in which case Chelsea will get the best out of him, or he can play without happiness, in which case “he does not play”.

It is a measure of Mourinho’s popularity and pulling power that amidst the giggles, the gentlemen of the press did not even pause to scrutinise what had actually been said.

Had they done so, they might have come to the conclusion that it makes neither good football sense nor good business sense.

What it definitely does make, however, is good copy.

Happiness is a day at the court of King Jose.