Month: December 2015

Chelsea forward Diego Costa has admitted that he was wrong to throw his training bib at Jose Mourinho during the defending Premier League champion’s match against Tottenham Hotspur last month.

The Brazilian born Spanish international allowed his frustration at not being picked for the game against the club’s London rivals to spill over when it became apparent that Mourinho would not even be using him as a substitute in the game. As he returned to his place on the bench he appeared to remove his training bib and throw it at his Portuguese manager.

That incident came after the player seemed to have a run-in with the Chelsea boss during a Champion’s League tie, with both people shouting at each other as the match neared half-time. Costa has confessed he was wrong to challenge the manager who called himself the ‘Special One’ when he first arrived in England. The striker said, “The bib [incident] is in the past. I made a mistake”.

Speaking to the Spanish radio station Onda Cero, Costa claimed that everything was good between himself and Mourinho, despite the fact that he was dropped to the bench for Chelsea’s games against Spurs and Bournemouth. He said, “My relationship with Mourinho is amazing, we get on really well. There are things you need to control but the bib thing was an impulse”.

The forward returned to the Blues’ starting line-up for their 2-0 win over Porto in the Champion’s League on Wednesday and it was his running and pressing that created the side’s opening goal. He has under-gone a poor run of form in recent games, however, struggling to replicate the form he displayed last season when he netted 20 goals and helped Chelsea to win the Premier League title.

Mourinho played down the bib incident after the game against Tottenham and said that he had ‘no issue’ with the player, but he will no doubt appreciate the striker’s show of contrition as Chelsea head into the busy Christmas period. With Costa likely to start for the Blues in their match against Leicester on Monday night the Chelsea manager will be hoping his goal-scoring improves as much as his attitude appears to have done.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho used his pre-match press conference to say that he still thinks his side can achieve a ‘dream’ fourth placed finish in the Premier League.

Speaking ahead of the defending Premier League champion’s game against league leaders Leicester City, the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’ said, “Maybe we have a chance to dream with a great finish and finish fourth. While it is mathematically possibly, we have to try”.

The Blues are currently 14th in the Premier League, an incredible 14 points off fourth placed Manchester United and 17 points shy of this weekend’s opponents Leicester. Chelsea have lost five of their last ten league games, including four of their last seven. Their loss to Bournemouth last weekend means that the Cherries are the first newly promoted team to win at Stamford Bridge since Charlton managed it in April of 2001.

The defeat to Bournemouth left Chelsea just two points above the relegation zone and Mourinho admitted it wasn’t something he saw happening before the game kicked off. He said, “Before we lost the last three points against Bournemouth, I was convinced of fourth, of a great December for us. I have to be honest and say the last defeat was something that I was far away from believing was possible”.

Despite dreaming of finishing fourth the Portuguese boss also admitted that this season’s topsy-turvy league means that teams are going to struggle to put any kind of run of form together. He said, “The reality is that some clubs are doing so well, and some are not capable of doing what people are used to. It is not possible for clubs to win three, four, five, 10 matches in a row now”.

With rumours circulating that Mourinho could lose his job if he fails to win the next two league games the Chelsea manager was quick to insist that he’s in it for the long haul. He told the gathered press, “I imagine myself finishing my contract with Chelsea. I have three and half years on my contract. After that I imagine myself coaching, not every club, there are some clubs I will never manage. I think that the bad results are not normal, but the chance for every manager to do his work and finish what he started is. What is not normal is what is happening now”.

The Blues have a great opportunity to return to business as normal against the Foxes, a team that has been flying in recent weeks. Having lost just one of their last ten games and managed draws against Stoke, Southampton and Manchester United the Chelsea manager will be keen to ask questions of the club’s former boss Claudio Ranieri and his current charges.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho is confident that the club’s owner, Roman Abramovich, will not make a ‘rash decision’ and sack him, it has been revealed.

Mourinho, talking at the press conference before his side face Porto in a make or break game in the Champion’s League tonight, said, “Abramovich believed in me twice: one, when he brought me back to the club, and the second time when he gave me a new four-year contract in the summer”.

The self-proclaimed ‘Special One’ won two Premier League titles, two League Cups and an FA Cup in his first spell at Stamford Bridge from 2004 to 2007. He returned in the summer of 2013, having also endured success at Inter Milan and Real Madrid in the intervening six years.

This season has seen Chelsea Football Club endure a torrid start to the campaign, losing eight of their first fifteen league games. The defending Premier League champions lost just one of their first 99 home league games with Mourinho at the helm, but they’ve now lost four of their last seven at Stamford Bridge.

With the Blues already out of the League Cup and yet to ensure their qualification to the last sixteen of the Champion’s League, rumours have emerged that the Portuguese boss is set to lose his job if Chelsea fail to win their next two games.

Mourinho, though, doesn’t think that’s likely as long as Abramovich is at the top of the club. He said he believed he would be safe “Because I think I did lots of good things for this club. I don’t think the owner is a person to change with the wind. I know the wind of results is an important wind and I know this wind is really strong because the results in the Premier League are really bad”.

Chelsea, who won the Champion’s League in 2012 when Roberto Di Matteo was manager, must avoid defeat tonight if they are to make it through to the knockout stages of the competition. With Manchester United failing to do just that last night and Arsenal’s qualification far from assured, the pressure is on Chelsea to join Manchester City in the next round to represent the English clubs.

Chelsea’s former defender, Wayne Bridge, thinks that his former club and previous manager shouldn’t be under-estimated. He said, “You wouldn’t say it on current form but it would be a great story for a team that doesn’t do too well in the Premier League. To go and win the Champions League – it’s something he [Mourinho] is capable of – but it’s a very big ask at the moment. But with Mourinho being there you can never underestimate what he can produce”.

The Chelsea manager will be hoping that his former defender is right and that the club could yet produce something special in the Champion’s League. If they fail to then the Portuguese maestro could find that the ‘winds’ change in the wrong direction and his faith in Roman Abramovich is misplaced.

FIFA’s medical committee’s head has confirmed that he will be offering his support to Eva Carneiro, Chelsea’s former doctor, in her case against the club.

Carneiro is currently in the process of suing the defending Premier League champions for constructive dismissal, whilst also getting involved in an individual legal action against the Blues’ manager Jose Mourinho.

The former club doctor was dropped from being involved with first-team duties in the aftermath of Chelsea’s game against Swansea City on the opening day of the season. Carneiro ran on to the pitch to treat Eden Hazard after the winger lay injured on the floor and the referee, Michael Oliver, had waved the medical staff on numerous times.

Mourinho, however, was not impressed with her decision and called her ‘naive’ after the game. Chelsea were already down to 10 men after Thibaut Courtois had been sent off for taking out Swansea’s striker Bafetimbi Gomis. The fact that Carneiro and Jon Fearn, Chelsea’s physiotherapist, treated Hazard meant he had to be removed from the field of play, leaving the Blues with nine men for a period of time towards the end of the match.

Mourinho came under criticism for his post-match comments, including the suggestion that even if Carneiro were a ‘secretary on the bench’ she should show a better understanding of the rules of the game. The self-proclaimed ‘Special One’ was cleared of using discriminatory language by the Football Association, however.

FIFA’s medical chief, Michel D’Hooghe, said, “Of course I support Eva Carneiro. She did her job, she did her duty – when somebody is medically in trouble she has to intervene. Of course she has my support and the whole medical committee’s. I have had email contact with her and she is very happy with the global support of the medical world in football”.

The FIFA chief also said that he would help her find a new job in football, even if it was likely that she might struggle to begin with. He added, “I can imagine that in the short term she might have some problems with that. But with her personality and her competence she must certainly have a great future and if I can help her I will do it”.

Former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has offered his support to under-fire Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho, it has emerged.

Speaking at a TechCrunch Disrupt London event, Ferguson said, “There is no point in sacking one of the best coaches of all time”. It comes after rumours emerged that Mourinho could be given the sack if Chelsea fail to win their next two games, having lost eight of the first fifteen games that the defending Premier League champions have played in so far this season.

The Blues are 14th in the league, just three points above the relegation zone and seventeen points off Leicester City at the top. Despite losing only one league game at Stamford Bridge during the first 99 that they played under Mourinho’s management, Chelsea have lost four of their last seven games at home so far this season.

Yet Ferguson feels that releasing Jose Mourinho from his current position would be an act of folly by Chelsea’s owner Roman Abramovich. He said, “He has sacked so many coaches in the last 10 years. I am sure he has learned by it. He has to trust and have confidence that Jose can turn it round. In every country he has managed in he has won the big trophies. It would be foolish to sack him. It would be bad management”.

Mourinho and Ferguson clashed heads numerous times as rival managers, with the Portuguese coach believed to be desperate to take over from the Scot when he left Manchester United, only to see David Moyes given the job instead.

During his first spell in West London the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’ won two titles, two League Cups and an FA Cup for the club. He added another league title and a third League Cup trophy last season, having won four major trophies with Inter Milan and Real Madrid in between his two different management spells at Chelsea.

Ferguson believes that Mourinho will find a way to turn things around at Stamford Bridge, saying, “Now is the first time he has been confronted with non-success during his whole career. For the first time in his life he has had to deal with bad publicity and adversity and that is a challenge. But there are signs they are getting back to a balance, although they lost on Saturday. All good leaders will eventually find a solution. I know the guy and I know the work he has done in football and I can’t see it lasting long”.

Jose Mourinho is the most successful manager Chelsea have had during the Roman Abramovich era and Ferguson believes that this weekend’s game against Leicester City will offer the perfect opportunity for the Foxes to put themselves in prime position heading in to the winter break. He said, “This is a big opportunity for them. The way they are playing, they could win the league. They have a challenge now of whether they can go the whole way with this current squad. If I was Claudio Ranieri I would want investment in January”.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho claims he had no issues with his players going on a night out that lasted into the early hours of Thursday morning.

Some members of the Chelsea squad went out in London on Wednesday night, with Diego Costa being one of the players pictured leaving a night club in the capital. Costa was an unused substitute in Chelsea’s 0-0 draw with Tottenham Hotspur last weekend and appeared to throw his bib at his manager in disgust when he realised he wouldn’t make the field of play.

Far from being angry about the incident, however, the Portuguese boss admitted the players ‘needed’ the party and that they went out on the town with his blessing. He said, “The next morning everyone trained very well, they were happy. They told me the dinner was good and the after-dinner was better”.

Mourinho saw Thibaut Courtois return to the starting XI for the home match against Bournemouth on Saturday, a game that Chelsea went on to lose 1-0. Courtois’ presence in the line-up was one of the only bright moments for the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’. He said, “To lose your number one for three months, something like 19 matches without the best goalkeeper in the world, is tough for us. Thibaut was our keeper all last season and you know how fundamental he was, it’s important to have him back”.

The Chelsea manager also claimed that there are no problems between him and his Brazilian born Spanish international striker Diego Costa, despite those photographs surfacing of him enjoying his night out after the player’s party. Mourinho said, “He’s been very good, he trained very well. Diego is the type of player who always tries. I just need him to be what he is, I don’t need a reaction”.

He will be hoping to see a reaction from his players after they suffered their fourth home defeat in their last seven matches and their eighth defeat in the Premier League this season. The defending Premier League champions sit just three points off the relegation zone and fourteen points away from Manchester United in fourth spot.