José Mourinho didn’t all of a sudden manifest the striker Chelsea desperately needs to truly compete in Europe, but nearly everything over the past week since he was sent off at Aston Villa has gone supremely well for him.

Chelsea first advanced into the Champions League quarterfinals with a 2-0 win over Galatasaray (3-1 on aggregate) in which Samuel Eto’o scored in the fourth minute on a chance initiated by Eden Hazard, followed by a Gary Cahill second to make the match comfortable.

Mourinho next spoiled the 1,000th game for Arsène Wenger with Arsenal in a 6-0 ‘nightmare’ for his French rival.

And because it is still impossible to watch a clásico without thinking of him, Mourinho’s week was capped by Barcelona defeating Real Madrid 4-3 in which his counter-attack tactics were clearly needed even if Real has bridged the talent gap over the past few years.

Assuming Chelsea picks up three points against relegation-zone Crystal Palace, Mourinho will enter the month of April and the UCL quarters against Paris Saint-Germain technically at the top of the Premier League table.

Manchester City controls their own destiny with their games remaining in hand, and Liverpool is playing the most exciting soccer in the world right now scoring at a stunning rate, but Chelsea has a 31 percent chance at the title.

Hazard has unquestionably become Chelsea’s most talented player, ranking fourth in the EPL in average rating and key passes, fifth in goals and first in successful dribbles per game, but Nemanja Matić has become the critical component for the club to execute Mourinho’s blueprint. 

Matić was acquired for £21 million in January, returning to Stamford Bridge just three years after going to Benfica in the David Luiz transfer. Matić transformed his game while in Portugal, embracing the conversion from a No. 10 into a defensive midfielder. At 6’4 and still just 25 years old, his physical superiority was evident against Arsenal’s tiny midfield and he will fill the huge void at the position that Mourinho had inherited.

Matić has a 7.67 WhoScored rating in his 10 total appearances since coming to Chelsea, with 3.3 tackles (2nd on the team per game), 2.4 interceptions (1st), 47.1 passes (2nd), 4.5 long balls (2nd) and 1.2 successful dribbles (3rd).

Arsenal was briefly linked to Matić during the January window and that is their biggest need more than the marginal improvement of whomever they can land to replace Olivier Giroud. Even a club as deep as Real Madrid wins that clásico on Sunday with Matić disrupting Barcelona instead of Xabi Alonso. For all the hundreds of millions Real and Barcelona have spent on building two of the three best clubs in the world, they prioritize the glamour positions above a tipping point acquisition like Matić.

Mourinho knew he could either have a striker or Matić in January, and it is doubtful he ever considered any other move knowing the goal scorer of his choice will arrive in the summer after squeezing out the final weeks of high level soccer left in Eto'o and Fernando Torres. 

Funding the Matić transfer, which was viewed by some at the time as at least somewhat pricey given his perceived quality and impact, was the move of Juan Mata to Manchester United for £37 million and Kevin De Bruyne to Wolfsburg for £17 million. Mourinho managed to improve his club in January while ensuring that Chelsea would turn a profit for the season to adhere to the Financial Fair Play rules since the club lost approximately £50 million in 12-13.

The deal for Matić doesn't improve their chances in the Champions League since he's ineligible after already appearing for Porto, but it is already a proven difference-maker in the Premier League and it also ensures that another club can't get him. 

While incredibly talented, Mata was a peripheral piece for Chelsea since Mourinho preferred Willian (25), Ramires (27), Oscar (22), André Schürrle (23) and of course Hazard (23) as his attacking midfield of the present and future. Mourinho will likely still be at Chelsea when they have to replace Frank Lampard and John Terry, who have more than 800 combined apps for the club, but the stability of his already established midfield will make that transition far easier. 

“The sale of Mata is an example of Mourinho’s philosophy. He doesn’t have any passengers in the team,” said Graeme Le Saux toward the end of NBC’s telecast of the Chelsea win over Arsenal. “Everybody has to contribute their shift defensively and everyone has a role to play when they’ve got the ball.

“I think with other teams sometimes in possession teams might carry the odd one and out of possession there are certain teams that carry the odd individual as well that don’t offer the same work rate maybe that Mourinho demands of his Chelsea players.”

Those players have bought into Mourinho's demands for two-way contributions and it is how he so consistently gets these types of results everywhere he goes. Mourinho may wear on everyone after a while, most notably his own players given how daunting his demands can be, but he is demonstrably a master motivator.

Mourinho is the type of manager that makes the lovable narcissist Zlatan Ibrahimovic concede he would be "willing to die for."

"He built us up before matches," wrote Ibrahimovic writes in his autobiography. "It was like theatre, a psychological game. He might show videos where we’d played badly and say: ‘So miserable! Hopeless! Those guys can’t be you. They must be your brothers, your inferior selves,’ and we nodded. We were ashamed."

Mourinho has successfully reshaped the Chelsea roster on the fly to be good enough to be in contention and now he enters the final lap of the season within striking distance for his tactical and man management superiority to will the trophy. Man City could make the title a moot issue if they all but run the table by getting results at Arsenal and Liverpool, yet that April 27th match for Chelsea against Liverpool at Anfield looms as the one that could decide the whole thing.