Special relationships

At that time, the Portuguese was establishing himself as an unqualified genius at the game of winning ugly: two Premiership titles, two League Cups and an FA Cup would eventually be his. Here was the de facto Billy Big Time. That day, however, he was eating ugly, his formidable ego cast aside as he mingled with the hoi polloi of the M4 corridor.

Craig Brown, then Derby's director of football, was an eye-witness to this unlikely scenario. "I'd gone to the food stall because I was starving. And who were in the queue but Mourinho and his pal Andre Villas-Boas. I knew them both from the coaching sessions at Largs. Jose was a wee bit serious; there was a bit more fun from Villas-Boas. I told Jose to put plenty of sauce on his burger. Seriously, though, the last thing you would have expected was to see the Chelsea boss buying a burger from a stall. I wished I'd had a camera. The picture would have been worth a lot of money."

Brown, unfortunately, was not present to validate the next claim: I'm told that Abramovich, having recently deposited himself in one of London's more fashionable eateries, ordered a £1000 bottle of red wine but, after taking one sip, topped it up with Coca-Cola.

If you call that ridiculous, try digesting some more. It's endlessly projected that the Russian oligarch, the 50th richest man in the world, doesn't speak English, hence his refusal to grant interviews to those journalists who salivate at the mention of his name. In fact, he has been familiar with the language for long enough and is impressively proficient in it.

The point to all this is that Abramovich and Mourinho – their initially close relationship became fractious and deteriorated further in September 2007 when the master decided his employee's style of football had little style at all – are allegedly ready to pool their various absurdities and take on the rest of Barclays Premier League together again. It would be a remarkable volte-face by a man who seems to have an aversion to admitting he's wrong.

It's further claimed that Steve Clarke, currently manager of an upwardly-thrusting West Brom but, significantly, an integral part of the original Chelsea dream brigade, may sideline his ambitions as a solo act and join his old guv'nor on the Bridge.

Has pragmatism, therefore, at last assumed a potent position at Chelsea? Might Abramovich have discovered that logic deserves consideration in his privileged life? The club are a huge commercial entity, but need to be winning and remorselessly chasing down European qualification to retain selling power. Winning with style – to complement the owner's quixotic dream – is preferable, but winning is the most essential element of all. And this, of course, is a department which Mourinho specialises in.

Abramovich is known to change his mind and his managers as often as Lady Gaga substitutes her follicle formations, and consequently he has been around more houses than can be decently advertised in a property pull-out. Thus, his leadership – might "dictatorship" be more appropriate? – has left few options open to him in his search for his 11th leader in 10 years.

You imagine very few men other than the uber-confident Mourinho would contemplate working for a club in the knowledge they might be out of employment in roughly the time it takes an Armani tailor to cut and fit one of those overcoats favoured by the Portuguese.

Overtures famously went out to former Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola, remember, but he resisted an offer of an additional £1.3million a year on his Bayern Munich salary – and a free house in London's Belgravia. He believed the German option, for all its inherent political machinations, provided a less combustible workplace than a club where the owner remorselessly fills the chambers of an awesome arsenal and encourages Michael Emenalo (technical director) and Bruce Buck (chairman) to despatch the bullets.

So what occurs once caretaker Rafa Benitez is deposited in the breaker's yard ? (There must be a degree of sympathy for the Spaniard hereabouts: the impossibility of his job means he picks Demba Ba and upsets both Fernando Torres and Abramovich; he picks Torres and upsets Ba).

If Mourinho does indeed return and takes on the turmoil – Torres is still clinging to a personal nightmare, while John Terry's old injuries are kicking in with a vengeance – you can imagine Frank Lampard, below, performing a series of back-flips which would not disgrace the most athletic members of the street dance group Diversity. No-one seems to know the reason for Lampard's current alienation from the hierarchy, least of all the player; he's too occupied asking everyone who might provide an answer as to the lack of a new contract. Friends and associates point to his impeccable behaviour off the pitch and his irresistible scoring record on it. Could it be his £155,000 weekly stipend that is subverting fresh negotiations ? I wouldn't imagine this means too much to an owner who doesn't know the meaning of a means test.

The problem is just as likely to have its roots in an alleged verbal indiscretion: Lampard once made the pretty logical suggestion that a malfunctioning Torres should be subject to the same rules as the rest of the team and dropped. You imagine this might have been interpreted as a form of insurrection by Abramovich, who looks on the Spaniard with the same kind of favour he once bestowed on Andriy Shevchenko.

But the second coming of Mourinho would, you imagine, end the sophistry and fulfil Lampard's desire for another year at the Bridge. The Special One would never be in a more favourable position to dictate terms. Besides, he and Lampard were always tight back in the days when Chelsea were demolishing the invincibility of Manchester United.

The midfielder would be content with one more year. Being an intelligent chap with enough A Levels to intimidate an Oxford student never mind a professional footballer, he has a multitude of succulent fish to fry. He has completed a deal to write kids' books, and you imagine his articulacy will make him a regular on television.

Whatever he does, he's likely to stay in this country. There won't be a repeat of the David Beckham-Los Angeles syndrome. He has two daughters to his former fiancee Elen Rivas and doesn't want to be away from them. Besides, Christine Bleakley, his wife-to-be, is an ambitious girl who favours staying in England. Lampard wouldn't wish to remove her from those ambitions.

Lampard, of course, represents a bit of style – a commodity sorely needed at the Bridge. In the charismatic directorial days of old, a sports journalist visiting Stamford Bridge would occasionally sample smoked salmon and champagne under the chairmanship of the venerable Brian Mears. You were liable to rub the fragrant shoulders of Jane Seymour or the slightly less ones of Dickie Attenborough.

Such fraternity no longer exists between the directors and the Fourth Estate. The atmosphere is now cold and distant, and it's doubtful these day if many reporters would even know the location of the boardroom.

Even that is an irrelevance, however. What is essential to Abramovich is that the old winning engine is restored to the rails. Thus, his partnership with Mourinho is likely to be reconstituted. Once it might have been an absurd notion. Not any more. Indeed, it's a sense of the ridiculous that might just bring Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United back to the real world of competition.