It's official - The return of the 'Special One'

[LeTallecWiz]

I get the feeling Fergie didn't want Mourinho (why get a man who has the tools to pull a treble and match Fergie) ... and led him on ...

 

[gkmacca]

This is the Charlton comment, from last December, about the time that Ginsoak made his decision. I gather it was a very deliberate move by the board to get Charlton quoted about this:


For Charlton, who embodies the values of the club better than anyone, Mourinho's antics last season do not befit a United manager.

One of the most uncomfortable entries on an ever-lengthening charge sheet was Mourinho's gouging of the eye of Tito Vilanova, then Barcelona's assistant coach, in the 2011 Spanish Super Cup. "A United manager wouldn't do that," Charlton says. "Mourinho is a really good coach but that's as far as I would go really. He's the manager of Real Madrid and we expect to play them in the Champions League by the end of the season."

When it is put to him that it is difficult to imagine a United manager being allowed to get away with some of Mourinho's behaviour, Charlton says: "You are right. He pontificates too much for my liking. He's a good manager, though."

But Ferguson admires Mourinho. "He doesn't like him too much, though," Charlton shoots back.

 

[Rosco]

I get the feeling Fergie didn't want Mourinho (why get a man who has the tools to pull a treble and match Fergie) ... and led him on ...

Fergie knows Mourinho is suited to spending big in an attempt to win in the short term and then walking away when financial realities set in. He's not a manager to employ if you want sustained success. That's what United have had for years, it started out because they could outspend everyone but they stayed competitive when the playing field was somewhat balanced because of the quality of their decision making on players and contracts.

 

[King Binny]

Live update: http://livearticle.skysports.com/Event/Sky_Sports_Today_-_Monday_June_10

The first question to Mourinho is to ask if he is still the Special One...

I am the happy one. Time flies. It seems like it was a couple of days ago that it was nine years ago. Since then a lot of things have happened in my professional life

Mourinho on how he has changed since his last time at Chelsea

Five years in a managerial career is a long time. Football demands a lot and you learn a lot every day. After 13 years you realise you knew nothing. My adventures around Europe were fantastic for me.

There will be a few reunions for Mourinho when he faces Brendan Rodgers, Steve Clarke and Andre Villas-Boas, who are former Chelsea coaches but not manage at Liverpool, West Brom and Tottenham, as well as Arsene Wenger at Arsenal.

Wenger is there and I am happy he is. The three boys are not boys anymore - Brendan, Steve and Andre. I wish them all the best.

Mourinho is asked about his reported falling out with Iker Casillas at Real Madrid.

I am sorry. I played the players I think are best for the team.

Another question asks Mourinho what he thought of former Chelsea interim boss Rafa Benitez’s decision to sideline John Terry last season.

From me, not one word about Benitez’s decisions either on John or another player.

Mourinho on the level of competition in the Premier League next season

When I arrived, Arsenal were the power. After that, us and Manchester United. Now the picture is different. United are champions, Manchester City before. Everybody will try to finish top four, and after that top three. After that, trying to win it. The first objective is top four.

 

[RedZeppelin III]

urgh , guess we're going to have to sit through rodgers and mourinho stroking each other's cocks in the build up to our first game against them. then the two delaying the kickoff by 10 mins while they hug and rub each other's faces .

 

[LeTallecWiz]

He's said happy 20 times already. He looks miserable the cunt

 

[gkmacca]

Deep down it's all about the translator trying to convince himself he really belongs. And he'll never do it.

 

[LeTallecWiz]

I think I've had more fun cutting my nails than listening to this press conference.

 

[King Binny]

 

[Dreambeliever]

Hmmm, I can see Chelsea walking the league.

City are a mess, Utd in transition and Arsenal Spurs to far back

 

[King Binny]

The new Blues boss believes he returns to a domestic league which is at its most open for many years, with three of last season's top four sides all set to start the campaign with new managers.

"It is different (now)," he said.

"In terms of quality, I don't think it's better, to be fair, but in terms of competitiveness, it is harder.

"In our (last) time, there were three teams. Who is first, who is second, who is third? But everyone knew it would be between us, United and Arsenal.

"In this moment, (Manchester) City have appeared with this fantastic economical power that helps them to go up so fast as they did.

"Tottenham had a very good period with Harry (Redknapp), reaching the fourth spot, playing Champions League, going up and up and up.

"Andre (Villas-Boas), last year, did a good job by keeping the team at that level and I think they have conditions to fight for the Premier League (title), not just a Champions League spot.

"And Liverpool, I know Brendan (Rodgers) and I know he can do it. I don't speak so much with him now on the phone. Last year I did, as friends, and I know his ideas, his project, and Liverpool will go up too.

"So there are six teams. Who's going to be first, who's going to be sixth? I don't know, but for sure it's the most important league in Europe and we'll try to raise it more."

 

[Judge Jules]

Hmmm, I can see Chelsea walking the league.

City are a mess, Utd in transition and Arsenal Spurs to far back

Chelsea will certainly be in the mix and may be favourites, but they're not going to walk it. City have too much quality to slip that far behind and United have such a winning momentum that it might even survive losing Ferguson. The Arse may spend big this summer, and if they get that right they'll challenge too. I agree about Tottenham.

 

[tombrown]

Chelsea will certainly be in the mix and may be favourites, but they're not going to walk it. City have too much quality to slip that far behind and United have such a winning momentum that it might even survive losing Ferguson. The Arse may spend big this summer, and if they get that right they'll challenge too. I agree about Tottenham.

Chelsea may walk into second place, behind us.

 

[King Binny]

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...hy-he-wants-to-sign-wayne-rooney-8721144.html

Questions about Wayne Rooney’s name are strictly off-limits with Jose Mourinho at the moment, but when the Manchester United striker is mentioned yesterday, he can at least see the funny side of it. “Forbidden word!” he shouts, in mock horror at the offending reporter, “go to the wall and turn your back for two minutes!”

There can be no answers about Rooney, but what cannot be avoided is what the Rooney situation says about the man he would potentially replace at Chelsea – indeed, the man who was the last marquee-name centre-forward. That is Fernando Torres whose mystifying slump has been a problem at Chelsea for some time. Now it is Mourinho’s problem too.

At the team’s hotel on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur yesterday, Mourinho gave his first extensive interview since his arrival at Chelsea and with the benefit of having worked with his squad for two weeks, albeit not yet Torres. He is in a better position now to discuss the squad’s strengths, and what he believes the future is for the likes of John Terry and David Luiz as well as his own status among the new group of Premier League managers.

As for Torres, the first thing that Mourinho has done is to accept the player’s limitations and try to work with the best of him “Fernando is a striker, nobody has doubts about it, but I think he's a striker more comfortable when he has space behind defenders,” Mourinho says. “He has it more difficult when opponents are very close, when opponents are compact and when he has to play in small spaces.

“He's more a player to go into a space than to play with the ball at his feet. That's something easy to understand about Fernando, so I will try to do my best.”

What can be done? Mourinho says that Romelu Lukaku, for instance, has “much more scope to be worked on, than an end product like Fernando at 29”. Asked whether Torres, who scored eight league goals last season in a total of 23, could be the player he once was again, Mourinho was open-minded.

“I think when Chelsea plays with that philosophy [creating space] he can. Against teams [who compress the play] very close and you have to play him in small spaces he will have a little bit more difficulty. At Liverpool they played much more of a ‘low block’, and he had balls to attack behind defenders. In that aspect he was a lot more comfortable. Sometimes it's easy to say a player is not performing but that might not be fair because sometimes the way you play decides if someone is more or less comfortable on the pitch.”

Asked whether, he has a striker who can perform that role, playing in tight spaces when the game is compressed, Mourinho is frank. “I would want to improve them [his current strikers] but that quality they don't have,” he says. “I will work on it with them.” There, in a nutshell, is why he wants Rooney.

It is an intriguing hour spent with Mourinho. He is used to talking about himself, but now he is in a position to talk about the players he has inherited almost six years since he left the club and the different nature of the challenge. “I cannot coach Marco van Ginkel the same way as I did Claude Makelele. I cannot coach Lukaku the same way I coached Didier Drogba. I cannot coach Frank Lampard at 35 years old the same way I was coaching him at 27. Even if many things look similar, everything is different.”

And what of Luiz, a defender with a maverick streak or a best as a midfielder? “For me, Luiz is a central defender,” he says. “Of course, I understand perfectly that he can help the team playing another position. But he's a central defender, no doubt about it. I think he has an important quality for the football we want to play, which is to build. He builds from the back and is comfortable with the ball. I think he can improve, as everybody can, and especially defensively. The potential is amazing.”

With his current squad, Mourinho sees himself much more as an educator “a bit of a coacher, a bit of a teacher”. He talks with enthusiasm about his young players’ capacity to “absorb and process” what he tells them and what he hopes is the “big space in their grey matter, lots of neurons free.”

Mourinho sees himself differently too. He warms to a theme that he is “the godfather” now Sir Alex Ferguson has gone, having helped to launch the careers of Andre Villas-Boas, Steve Clarke and Brendan Rodgers as well as Aitor Karanka, his assistant at Real Madrid, who he says will now pursue his own management career rather than join the staff at Chelsea. He even suggests he will involve himself in fewer disputes.

“I’m one of the guys with more time in football,” Mourinho says. “I won all the English competitions so maybe I have a bit more responsibility. I have that on my shoulders, so probably I have to be an example for everybody in many aspects not just the expectations of Mourinho winning. Everything - conduct, support, to be there for people when for some reason they need me.”

He remains generous and polite about David Moyes, suggesting that he must be very proud, as a Scot as well as a manager, to follow Ferguson. “One of the most difficult things in the club is to create a victory culture, where you walk through the door and you smell the success, you smell confidence, you smell self-esteem, Mourinho says.

“David is in a big club and that is a big help. Everybody knows how to win. Of course, it is up to him now. He has to coach, he has to decide who to buy, who to play, he has to train them every day.”

And what of Mourinho when he first arrived at Chelsea in 2004? He grimaces when he remembers the old training ground, those blowy old university sports pitches by Heathrow airport. “I trained at Harlington,” Mourinho says. “And the cup they had from the previous season was the Malaysian Cup they won here! Now Chelsea is a big club. If you go to Bangkok, the stadium is blue.”

 

[gkmacca]

It's pathetic how the hacks are so desperate for him to be the great entertainer they report every mind-numbingly banal remark from him as though it's comic genius. He's like the office bore who wears a bow tie and coloured socks in the hope it makes him seem interesting. They saw through him in Italy and he hated them for it. England's the only place they fall for his tired old spiel.

 

[Red Astaire]

It's pathetic how the hacks are so desperate for him to be the great entertainer they report every mind-numbingly banal remark from him as though it's comic genius. He's like the office bore who wears a bow tie and coloured socks in the hope it makes him seem interesting. They saw through him in Italy and he hated them for it. England's the only place they fall for his tired old spiel.

LOL