Starting as a Defensive Midfielder at Real Madrid

After Chelsea’s crushing victory over Manchester United, the Premier League entered a brief break. The next round wouldn’t begin for another ten days.

During this period, clubs still competing in the FA Cup had to prepare for their fourth-round matches.

For Chelsea, the opponent in this round of the FA Cup was fellow Premier League side Stoke City.

This gave Mourinho a bit of a headache.

Currently, the Premier League standings were incredibly tight: Chelsea sat at the top with 56 points, while Manchester City and Arsenal were close behind, both on 50 points. City held second place thanks to a better goal difference.

With just a two-match gap between the top three, neither City nor Arsenal were letting Chelsea breathe.

If Chelsea had an advantage of three wins or more, Mourinho might have felt safe enough to continue investing energy in the FA Cup.

But with only six points separating them from City, he was increasingly inclined to abandon the FA Cup altogether.

Doing so would allow Chelsea’s first-team players more rest. They could then focus solely on the league and the Champions League.

Aside from the League Cup final scheduled for early March, the calendar would remain relatively light.

Chelsea had already demolished West Ham in the League Cup semifinals. With one foot already in the final, Mourinho felt no urgent desire to chase yet another domestic cup.

In contrast, Guardiola—managing in England for the first time—still needed to prove himself to his new club.

With City already eliminated from the League Cup, their only remaining domestic hopes were the FA Cup and the Premier League title.

So, as Chelsea eased their fixture load, City’s became more demanding. Naturally, this would give Chelsea a significant advantage in the title race down the line.

However, Mourinho couldn’t make this decision alone.

After the United match, he first convened a meeting with his coaching staff. Once they agreed on the direction, he pulled aside Terry, Lampard, and Leon for a private conversation.

Leon didn’t hold any special emotional attachment to the FA Cup. He wasn’t English, after all.

To him, the FA Cup and the League Cup were simply domestic tournaments with similar value. He openly supported the idea of prioritizing the league and Champions League.

If they could win the League Cup, he believed fans would understand the need to drop the FA Cup.

Terry and Lampard were more hesitant—understandably, given their long-standing association with English football. But after talking it through with Mourinho, both accepted the logic.

Their past experiences had taught them that chasing too many trophies at once often backfired.

No team in English football had yet managed to win the Premier League, League Cup, and FA Cup all in a single season.

If even the peak-era Chelsea had failed to achieve that, what hope did this still-rebuilding squad have?

With the league title now a very real possibility, they had to prioritize.

After internal discussions, the coaching staff finalized the decision—and the squad agreed.

Chelsea had plenty of international players who weren’t emotionally invested in the FA Cup. For players like Ibrahimović, Hazard, De Bruyne, and David Luiz, lifting that trophy would be nice—but not at the cost of risking their bigger goals.

With full squad consensus, Mourinho swiftly finalized the starting lineups for the second leg of the League Cup semifinal and the FA Cup fourth round.

Both matches would be played against Premier League teams—West Ham and Stoke. But unlike lower-tier clubs, they were unlikely to resort to dirty, overly aggressive tactics.

That opened the door for players like Van Ginkel, Kalas, and other young prospects to start.

On January 22, Chelsea played the League Cup second leg against West Ham. Then, just four days later on the 26th, they would face Stoke in the FA Cup.

Salah was named in the starting XI for the Stoke match. It would be his last appearance before returning to Basel for the second half of the Swiss Super League.

To maximize rest for the first team, Mourinho didn’t even name a single regular starter to the bench for either cup tie—not even Leon.

The starters enjoyed a full four days off before returning to Cobham for light recovery sessions.

At the pre-match press conference before the West Ham match, Mourinho’s youth-heavy lineup caused no stir.

After all, Chelsea had already crushed West Ham in the first leg. It made perfect sense to give the kids a run-out in a glorified formality.

The match itself went as expected.

Chelsea played calmly and defensively, and their youth squad—backed by a few seasoned rotation players—was still stronger than West Ham, who were languishing near the relegation zone.

A goal in each half brought the game to a 2-2 draw, and Chelsea advanced comfortably to the League Cup final.

However, things changed ahead of the FA Cup tie.

At the pre-match presser, when Mourinho once again announced a youth-focused lineup, the media pounced.

They accused him of cowardice, of disrespecting the spirit of the competition, of turning his back on the FA Cup’s proud tradition.

Mourinho was under pressure. But when he saw his rested stars return to training sharp and energized, he felt vindicated.

A full season was too long to push through blindly.

Younger players recovered quickly. But in England’s cold, damp winter, aging veterans needed careful rotation and protection.

Chelsea’s old guard—Terry, Ashley Cole, and others—had already played a heavy schedule across the Premier League, Champions League, and League Cup.

Without their contributions, Chelsea wouldn’t be fighting on all three fronts so successfully.

And Mourinho’s faith in his veterans paid off immediately in the 23rd round of the Premier League.

After a grueling winter stretch, players like Terry and Ashley Cole had clearly benefited from the rest. Their movement was sharper, their energy restored.

Four days of rest between matchdays 20 and 21, and again between 22 and 23, had breathed new life into them.

On January 29, Chelsea hosted West Ham at Stamford Bridge in round 23 of the Premier League.

”Hosted” might not be the right word—it was more like a sanctioned demolition.

Having been slaughtered by Chelsea in the League Cup, West Ham were already scarred.

Just a week earlier, they’d barely managed a draw against Chelsea’s youth squad in the League Cup second leg.

Now, facing Chelsea’s full-strength first team again, they had no hope.

And it came at the perfect time for Mourinho.

Chelsea were still fuming from the media backlash after their FA Cup exit to Stoke.

They needed a convincing win to shut the critics up.

West Ham were the perfect scapegoats.

Mourinho didn’t hold back. He fielded a 4-4-2 with Ibrahimović and Lukaku both starting up front.

Double firepower, full pressure.

No need for three central midfielders—Leon and Matić were more than enough to dominate West Ham’s flimsy midfield line.

In this match, Hazard and De Bruyne—who normally played as wide midfielders—were pushed all the way forward into full-on winger roles.

The veterans at the back held firm, and the young attackers up front performed well beyond expectations. Chelsea had already broken through West Ham’s defense early in the first half.

No fancy tactics were needed—just classic wing play and relentless 45-degree crosses into the box.

And when enough ”ammo” was sent into the box, Ibrahimović and Lukaku tore West Ham’s backline apart, again and again. ”Inspecting West Ham’s defense line” would’ve been putting it mildly.

Leon was more than happy to sit in midfield and orchestrate.

He didn’t register a goal or assist in this match, but in Chelsea’s 7–0 demolition, he was responsible for at least 50% of the credit.

Even West Ham fans admitted it after the game. During interviews, they didn’t single out Lukaku—who bagged a hat trick—or Ibrahimović, who had two goals and an assist.

No, the player they hated most was Leon, the man in the middle who kept feeding Chelsea’s wings with endless supply.

Veteran fans had a sharp eye—they knew full well that without Leon and Matić shutting down West Ham’s counters and setting up the rhythm of Chelsea’s attack, those ”shells” wouldn’t have kept raining down on their defenders’ heads.

After this match, many Premier League fans saw Leon in a new light.

Plenty were amazed: Leon could drop deep and function purely as a No. 8—an all-out midfield orchestrator.

But no sooner had these praises been posted than Spanish and Italian fans jumped in with mocking comments.

”This is why we always say English football lacks tactical depth. Leon was learning distribution under Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid. Did you think he was just a rough b2b midfielder?”

”Pirlo literally said that if Leon had stayed in Serie A, he would’ve become Italy’s next great playmaker. Sure, he still needs a couple more years to fully mature, but right now, he’s already the best all-round organizing midfielder of the new generation.”

Those comments triggered a wave of nostalgia and reflection among English fans.

Xabi Alonso, Pirlo—these weren’t just any midfielders. They were the gold standard. And they had both endorsed Leon’s future as a world-class organizer.

Their words weren’t handed out lightly.

And looking at Leon’s first season as the core of a brand-new team, even the most skeptical Premier League fans had to admit—those legends weren’t wrong.

Still, the nonstop Leon praise in London media was beginning to wear thin for non-Chelsea fans.

Arsenal and Spurs supporters were sick of it. But deep down? They were jealous.

Once upon a time, they had players like that.

One had betrayed his boyhood club to become the centerpiece at Manchester City.

The other was now enjoying a golden spell at Real Madrid, picking up club silverware left and right—things Spurs could never offer.

Once they had brilliance. Now, all they had was envy.

Publicly, they scoffed at Leon. Privately, they were grinding their teeth.

But as the 24th round of the Premier League approached, they had new reasons to gloat.

Chelsea would soon head to the Etihad to face Manchester City—hot on their heels with just six points separating them.

The first-round match between the two was still being dissected by pundits and fans alike. The consensus? Chelsea’s win came down to one thing: Leon’s explosive, god-like performance.

And such performances are rare. You can’t count on lightning to strike twice.

So this time, most fans expected a brutal, hard-fought match—especially if Mourinho and Guardiola were both set on claiming all three points.

On the other hand, if both managers kept their cool and played conservatively, the match might fizzle out into a dull draw.

But that’s the last thing fans and media wanted to see.

Arsenal and Liverpool supporters, especially, hoped Chelsea and City would go at each other’s throats and leave the battlefield wounded.

The second half of the season was underway, but it wasn’t yet time for an all-out sprint.

Still, the title race had clearly crystallized.

Chelsea, City, and Arsenal were locked in a tight three-way fight—any single match could flip the table.

Liverpool sat 11 points back—not an easy gap to close, but not impossible either.

As for Spurs, Everton, and United? They were no longer part of the title discussion.

For them, the fight was for fourth—nothing more.

United fans, seeing this season’s standings, could only sigh.

A year ago, they were miles ahead of City and on their way to locking up the title.

Now? Forget winning the league—they weren’t even favorites for a top-four finish.

Since being destroyed by Chelsea, United had crumbled.

In their last match, they needed a last-gasp Rooney winner just to scrape past bottom-feeders Cardiff City.

Let’s talk about Cardiff: by matchday 22, they had only won four games all season, scored 17 goals, and conceded 38.

They were the definition of cannon fodder.

And yet United had struggled for 90 full minutes to break them down.

Watching United’s current state—deflated, disorganized, demoralized—it was clear: the team wasn’t just weaker. They were broken.

In just ten days since the Chelsea thrashing, they’d lost their fight.

It was tragic.

But in the grander context of the Premier League’s new age of chaos and resurgence, United’s decline was just background noise.

Never before, by matchday 22, had three Premier League teams all passed the 50-point mark.

If Liverpool hadn’t dropped points early on to weaker sides, they’d be right up there too.

Even so, the FA was already celebrating.

Historic clubs were rising again.

Take Liverpool. After years of obscurity, they were finally putting a real season together.

Their name alone drew attention. Add in Suárez—now in career-best form—and they were once again boosting the Premier League’s international profile.

This season’s Golden Boot battle between Suárez and Cavani had reignited the league’s global buzz, much like the Van Persie vs. Rooney duel of 2011–12.

In this golden age of drama and viewership, United’s fall was a tragedy for their fans—but a blessing for everyone else.

Arsenal, flush with cash saved from years of austerity, now had their eyes on the crown.

City, after wresting the title from United, had brought in Pep Guardiola—determined to build a new empire from scratch.

Liverpool, reborn, were chasing the glory days of their dominant past.

And above them all stood Chelsea—rebuilt under Mourinho, reborn as the Premier League’s strongest title contender.

The empire has lost its deer—now all the warlords come hunting.

A storm is coming. And the time for glory is now.

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