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We have roughly 48 hours to come to grips with this, though if you've been paying attention, you will have been getting ready since just about the day after Jose Mourinho left Chelsea in December. Mutually terminated for the second time, if you want to use the party line. Sacked, if you want to use a more realistic term. In the end, of course, it's just business, but, just like the first, the bitter taste of it all will take some time to wash away.
It might actually take a bit longer this time, seeing as how Mourinho won't be managing in Italy or Spain (or France or Germany or some other new league). He was in London on Sunday at the boxing, and now he'll be heading up north.
Good way for LVG to bow out. But that's it. Club plan to tell him Monday & announce Mourinho new boss Tuesday.
— Dan Roan (@danroan) May 21, 2016
That's the BBC's Dan Roan, but everybody and their smallest local edition are reporting this by now. There had been a few stray reports even last night (here's the first I saw, from AS in Spain), but we've now reached critical mass. This is happening.
Brace yourselves.
NB. On a slightly different note, just how madcap will the managerial scene in the Premier League be next season? Guardiola vs. Mourinho up in Manchester. Klopp vs. Frank de Boer in Liverpool. Wenger and Pochettino and Mazzarri and Conte in London. Plus Ranieri and Bilic and Karanka coming up alongside the "ginger Mourinho". Reality television doesn't get better than this!