Irony piled on irony. Not so long ago he was telling us at Stamford Bridge press conferences that he only had a small squad of players, the implication being that his resources were strained. Yet as the season was approaching, he declared that it was his deliberate policy to reduce the size of the squad, since it meant that all its players would have their chance.

For those of us who feared that Chelsea with their Russian billions were permanently unbalancing the English game, it is something of a relief to see how money, indeed, isn't everything; even in football. One of the players castigated by Mourinho for his poor performance is the one who cost most of all, 30-million-pounds plus, in Andrei Shevchenko. I hardly think you could blame Mourinho for the departure of William Gallas to Arsenal when the Frenchman was so at odds with the club that he had even threatened to give away goals. But the loss of Gallas, and the absence for so many recent games of the dominant John Terry, has emphasised the unwisdom of buying the aggressive Khalid "The Cannibal" Boulahrouz, whose thuggery against Portugal was one of the least pleasing sights of the German World Cup.

Another to be criticised is the teenaged Nigerian talent, the supposedly unpunctual Jan Obi Mikel, but here again you might say that Chelsea and the player himself are hoist with their own petard. For Chelsea moved Heaven and earth to prise him away from Manchester United, via Lyn Oslo; the player himself insisting he preferred Stamford Bridge to Old Trafford. You wonder what he thinks about it now.

As for Arsenal and Arsene Wenger, theirs has been a switchback of a season. Defeat at Sheffield United, albeit with a much weakened team, was both crucial in terms of any faint chance they still had in the Premiership, and lamentable in their inability to score against a team which, for the last half hour, had an outfield player in Phil Jagielka. Who decried Arsenal's lack of sportsmanship after the game when several players refused to shake hands. Not that you could have expected any of them to shake the hand of the rugged Sheffield centre back Chris Morgan with which he had blatantly punched Robin Van Persie in the stomach and unless the FA take action on TV evidence got away with it.

United themselves were lacking several players, but the way the big French striker brushed off the supposedly commanding Kolo Toure to score the winning goal raised unhappy memories of the goal Toure gave away a couple of years back at Bayern Munich. No Thierry Henry, no Emmanuel Adebayor, in incisive form of late. But why did Arsenal allow three such promising strikers as the young Irishman Stokes, top scorer in Scotland even with unfashionable Falkirk, Danish international Bentner (Birmingham) and teenaged Italian Arturo Lupoli (Derby) all to go out on loan? As for their manager, that aura of cool, calm polyglot sophistication barely survived his contretemps with Tottenham's Martin Jol at Highbury late last season and went to the winds after the fierce confrontation with Alan Pardew this season at West Ham.

Pardew of course didn't last much longer after that heady victory; the Icelanders wielded the ice pick, you might say. But here he is installed at Charlton, where he once used to play. Hard to see what's happened at The Valley as anything but the stuff of sheer inept farce. Having managed to tempt Iain Dowie away from an outraged Crystal Palace. Quite why Dowie was shown the door so early in the season, when the beginning had been gloomy rather than disastrous, became the more mysterious when far from having another experienced manager up their sleeve, the club appointed the veteran coach Les Reed, who had never yet managed a club at any level. And when bad went to worse and Charlton collapsed ignominiously 5-1 at Tottenham, what did Charlton's chairman Richard Murray and chief executive Peter Varney do but give Reed a three-year contract! Results continued to be disastrous, not least a home defeat in the League Cup by humble Wycombe Wanderers and after he'd been in office for just 41 days, Charlton got rid of poor Reed too and appointed…Alan Pardew!

Somewhat ill advisedly, Reed published a long e-mail in a daily paper, informing us that having been told by Varney and Murray that they had every confidence in him, they dismissed him. No hard feelings at all on Reed's part. Xmas after all is the season of forgiveness.

As for West Ham, they too appointed an ex-player in Alan Curbishley who began with a sensational home win over Manchester United. Since then things have fallen apart; a 1-0 home defeat by Manchester City followed on New Year's day by a humiliating defeat at Reading.

At the home game against Manchester City, one was amazed to hear a fortissimo chorus from the fans at the start of the second half of, "One Carlos Tevez, there's only one Carlos Tevez!" He, of course, being one of the two Argentine internationals suddenly brought to the club at no expense by a young Iranian entrepreneur from the Corinthians of Sao Paolo, who didn't own him either; a conglomerate supposedly did. By general consent the sudden arrival of these two seriously unbalanced the team and lowered morale. For many fans the young captain Nigel Reo Coker was the villain of the piece allegedly sulking because he'd failed to get a transfer to Arsenal; but it was he who scored the goal which beat Manchester United.

After Man City beat his team, Curbishley marvelled at the fact that the crowd had called for Tevez -- a major star in South America -- who hadn't even scored this season. But I thought their demands were justified, as Tevez, playing wide left rather than centrally where he is best known, did immediately put some skill and movement into a previously flaccid attack. But no goals resulted.

Nor did they two days later when Hammers were thrashed and humiliated 6-0 at Reading. So much for the ruthless Icelanders. Could Pardew have done any worse? Or even poor Broken Reed had he stayed at Charlton.

And how come Tevez at Reading never got off the bench? Could he conceivably have done less or worse than those who played?