I suppose the people involved with any news website come to know their audiences. And how unpredictable, capricious and utterly inexplicable they can be.

Why no “hits” on this local story? Why scads of hits on this non-local or semi-local story?

At The National, for instance, we can get a nice number of page views on our the website by posting anything about the Nigeria national soccer team. Yes. Nigeria. On a UAE website for an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper thousands of miles from Nigeria.

(We have puzzled over that for a year. Our best explanation? A shortage of news outlets talking about Nigeria’s soccer team.)

One constant source of website traffic is more predictable, but even more productive.

Nearly anything written about Jose Mourinho, the coach at the English Premier League club Chelsea.

It sometimes seems we could post a story on what Jose Mourinho had for breakfast, and it would be one of our top-five most-read items on any given day.

(Really, it would be great to get him talking to one of correspondents on this, exclusively. Only about his breakfast. Nothing else. It would be No. 1 on our site. I’m sure of it. Now we just need to make it happen; I’m not sure Mourinho ever — ever — gives one-on-one interviews.)

The man is a lightning rod for opinion and speculation. Fascination, in general.

He is a guy who named himself “the Special One” and secured his reputation in Portugal, winning a Champions League title at Porto, before going to Chelsea the first time, and then to Inter Milan and Real Madrid, and back to Chelsea, winning pretty much all the time pretty much anywhere.

His fans are enamored of him. His detractors are haunted by him; they see him as a self-promoting dark lord of mind games, as well as cynical soccer.

It was Mourinho who famously “parked the bus” in front of the goal — packed the defensive end of the pitch with defenders — to throttle “beautiful” Barcelona while winning the 2010 Champions League, while at Inter Milan.

But it was also Mourinho who earlier this season accused “Big” Sam Allardyce of West Ham of playing “football from the 19th century” after a scoreless draw against a purely defensive West Ham. “This is not the Premier League,” Mourinho said. “This is not the best league in the world … the only thing I could use was a Black & Decker to destroy the (West Ham) wall.”

And it was also Mourinho who went “all 19th century” in a 2-0 victory at Liverpool today, who entered the game in first place, with an 11-game league winning streak.

Chelsea got a goal just before half when Steven Gerrard slipped in Liverpool’s end, Demba Ba pounced on the ball and went in for a goal through the keeper’s legs.

Chelsea then parked two buses, as some critics suggested, in front of goal, frustrated Liverpool thoroughly, and got a breakaway second goal in stoppage time.

And it was not just any match. Had Liverpool won, they would be this close to their first league championship since 1990. A co-worker at The National, a Liverpool fan for decades, spent his own money to fly to England and watch the match, wanting to be there to help celebrate Liverpool-ishness … not taking into account Mourinho, clearly.

Now, Chelsea is two points back, and Manchester City three points in arrears — but with three games left, to Liverpool’s two, and a nice bulge in goal-differential, the first tiebreaker.

City wins the title with three wins. Liverpool needs help.

Chelsea also is in the final four of the Champions League, and are at 0-0 after the first leg of the semi-finals, away to Atletico Madrid. In theory, Mourinho could still win both the Premier League and the Champions League.

We at The National commissioned several comment/analysis pieces on Mourinho before and after the Liverpool match. Of course we did.

One a few days ago, about how Mourinho’s season would pivot on two upcoming games.

A second, also before the match, on how his Machiavellia act is getting old — when, of course, it is not.

One from just after the Liverpool match, praising Mourinho’s tactics.

And another on how, sure, Mourinho had a great plan, but how Liverpool’s Brendan Rodgers doesn’t have as deep a squad to work with as the Portguese master. (Coaches are measured by how they do against Mourinho, that is.)

He will be in the newspaper again repeatedly in the coming days, ahead of the home leg of the Champions League … and if he/Chelsea win that, he will be condemned and praised over and again ahead of the Champions League final — but most of all (to us at The National) avidly followed, on our website and others.