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What next for Jose Mourinho? The clasico series is over, and a defeat, two draws and a win (after extra-time) doesn't sound too bad given Real Madrid's first game against Barcelona this season ended in a 5-0 defeat. His methods may be morally questionable, but he did at least narrow the gap between his side and what is surely one of the greatest teams the world has ever known. And yet that may not be enough.

The one win came in the Copa del Rey final, probably the least important of the five clasicos played this season. A draw in the league game at the Bernabeu was fortunate; some would argue that that game was almost irrelevant given Barca's lead, but had Real won it, and had they then beaten Zaragoza at the weekend as Barca lost to Sociedad, there would have been only two points in it at the top of the table. As it is there are eight, which is why Madrid are 120.0 for the title even before Saturday's difficult trip to Sevilla where they are 2.34 to win.

Defeat in the Champions League semi-final was far more emphatic than the 3-1 aggregate scoreline suggested. Perhaps the first leg was turned by a harsh sending off, but if you waggle your studs at knee height near an opponent, you're asking for trouble. Yes, Dani Alves made the most of Pepe's idiocy, but that was at least in part a result of the atmosphere Mourinho created. Knowing his side would be beaten if a game of football was allowed to break out, he made the encounter about the dark arts, and then found Barca more than his side's equal at them.

All he has done is to dull the lustre on their halo, although the raging against refereeing conspiracies has tarnished his own club's reputation even more. It probably hasn't done his own reputation much good either; from somebody who was supposed to be a master of mind-games, he has sounded astonishingly desperate over the past week or so, and the allegations of racism made against Sergio Busquets, in particular, could backfire if they are found to be without substance. Questions must be asked too about a coach who, in the heat of battle, loses his cool and is sent off when his team needs him most. His decision then not even to attend the stadium for the second leg is mystifying - watching on television can have shown him only part of the picture.

So what next? Real Madrid have traditionally demanded attractive football, something embodied in Jorge Valdano's continued presence at the club. Faced with an all-powerful Barcelona (1.57 to overcome Manchester United in the final]), those principles could perhaps be put aside, but when negative spoiling football has also failed there will be many who wonder whether the damage Mourinho is doing to the club's reputation is worth it. Florentino Perez is a ruthless president, perhaps even more ruthless than Roman Abramovich, and it may be that he decides Mourinho is more trouble than he's worth. Ramon Caldron, Perez's predecessor, was certainly beating that drum this weak when he called Mourinho's antics "harmful".

Mourinho too must consider his future. At Chelsea and at Internazionale, he won the league in his first season, at Porto in his first full season in charge; that will almost certainly not happen at Real Madrid. Barcelona is as good a mitigating factor as you're likely to find, but he must weigh up what is likely to happen next season. If he goes now, he can blame his lack of success on the fact that this wasn't his team, that he didn't have enough time to mould it to his philosophy. Stay another season, though, and he will have to bear the responsibility if Madrid failed.

Then again, maybe they wouldn't fail. After all, Barcelona have had an extraordinary run of luck with injuries. Their squad is small - what if they lost Xavi or Lionel Messi or Andres Iniesta for a protracted period. Could they cope? Or would they then be vulnerable to a Madrid side that has a longer bench already and will presumably be augmented in the summer? To be the man who toppled the great Barca must be a great incentive.

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