Jose Mourinho finds himself out of a job despite winning trophies almost everywhere he’s been. Our analysis reveals however that he has not over performed in his roles over the last decade.

Since 2013/14 Jose Mourinho has won 5 major honours. Our ‘Expected Trophies’ model estimates an average manager would have won 4.5 trophies given the financial resources at his clubs relative to others in competitions entered. In other words, he’s won as many trophies as would’ve been expected, but not over performed. 

During the same time period, Pep Guardiola has won 11 more trophies than expected (6) – suggesting that even with the budgets he has had, he has demonstrated an incredible capability to win. 

Measuring performance relative to expectations unveils ‘true performance’ and empowers decision makers to make contextualised judgements on managers that extend just beyond their CV.