[article=http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/rafael-benitez-did-not-leave-chelsea-in-good-enough-shape-claims-jose-mourinho-9003496.html]Jose Mourinho today insisted he has a tougher job at Chelsea this season than predecessor Rafael Benitez.
Mourinho returned to the club as manager in the summer after Benitez had a six-month spell in charge at Stamford Bridge, where he led the team to the Europa League trophy and third in the Premier League.
Chelsea have struggled for consistency under Mourinho but are just five points behind leaders Arsenal in the title race and have reached the last 16 of the Champions League. They take on Crystal Palace at home tomorrow having already lost to Everton, Newcastle and Stoke and Mourinho said: “I knew it would be tougher [this time]. Some managers choose easy jobs, some tough, I choose a hard one but I enjoy it.
“This is not a criticism but the last manager Benitez knew he would not be the manager for the next year and he was chasing results. He was not worried about the building of a team with a certain style.
“I didn’t have a real base to start. For many reasons we knew the situation needs time and patience.
“But it would be easy to say wait for five, six years, that’s not me or Chelsea or what we want for the players. We want to build and chase results. We’re not favourites but want to feel as favourites.”[/article]
[article=http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/jose-mourinho-chelsea-are-now-a-cup-team-rather-than-title-contenders-9002466.html]Life for Jose Mourinho at Chelsea was never going to be as easy as it was first time around. Back in 2004, he inherited a squad from Claudio Ranieri that were far superior to the one he has at his disposal now.
Despite his best efforts, the 50-year-old is still not sure what his players will produce from one match to the next in this most unpredictable of Premier League seasons.
While last week heralded an improved return of nine goals in three games, they conceded seven and this weakness led to a third League defeat of the campaign at Stoke on Saturday.
It has been more than three years since Chelsea last showed the ability to perform on a consistent enough basis to win the title under then manager Carlo Ancelotti.
Cup success, both domestically and in Europe, may have continued but Mourinho is fully aware that the transformation back to genuine contenders for the Premier League is a hard one.
He said: “It’s difficult to keep this consistency. One part of it is impossible to control because of the quality and mentality of the opponent and the nature of the competition.
“It’s very, very hard to get the run of five, six, seven, eight consecutive matches like some big teams can do in other countries where the League profile is completely different.
“The other point is for every player to get and feel comfortable with the responsibility of trying to do that, especially new people coming from clubs where they were not pushed in that direction.
“Even for the ones that were here before, by November and December [in the past] they were feeling it’s impossible to get the title so they started losing motivation and focusing more on the cup competitions, where you don’t need that stability — you just need to win one game here, one match next month and try to win a cup.
“To win a League, consistency is needed and the players must feel comfortable with that state of mind.”
Winning during the busy festive period was a hallmark of both title triumphs under Mourinho in 2005 and 2006. Chelsea boasted a 100 per cent record over Christmas during that time, which is why he doesn’t fear the fixture list that includes games against Arsenal, Swansea, Liverpool and Southampton by New Year’s Day.
He added on Chelsea TV: “I like [the Christmas period]. It’s very difficult but is an enjoyable period. I think players must be very strong, especially from the mental point of view.
“Strong squads help but the manager has to be always worried with the details and try to make some changes to try to keep freshness where you feel the team need to be stronger from the physical point of view. We are playing very well and playing attacking football the way we want to. But we have to stop individual mistakes in our box and score goals in numbers according to what we are producing.
“We know that at the same time, the reality of this incredibly difficult Premier League season gives you the notion that everyone is losing points, not just us. It keeps everybody not far from the target.
“This is our motivation because we are five points from the leaders [Arsenal] and we play them in just over a week’s time, so we can recover.”
Still, given that Mourinho only lost once in the League during his first season at the helm and has already seen his side concede more goals (17) than they did during the whole of that campaign (15), there must be an element of concern.
“It’s the evolution of things,” he said, as he prepared for tomorrow’s clash against Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge. “I always say that it’s not fair to compare seasons or players from different generations.
“The Premier League is completely different. It is better like this.
“Of course it’s not what we want to be happening, everybody wants to be leading the League and not losing a game but this [everyone dropping points] is the reality.”[/article]
[article=http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/my-strikers-dont-have-quality-and-potential-of-suarez-and-aguero-admits-jose-mourinho-9003683.html]Jose Mourinho has admitted that his trio of star strikers do not have the same 'quality' and 'potential' as the likes of Luis Suarez and Sergio Aguero.
Samuel Eto’o, Fernando Torres and Demba Ba cost Chelsea £57.5m between them - but have scored just four Premier League goals so far this season, while Liverpool’s Suarez has 15 and Manchester City’s Aguero 12.
Mourinho said: “Do I expect them to score a little bit more? Yes. Do we need a little bit more? Yes.
“But we cannot compare players with different qualities. We cannot expect Demba Ba or Fernando to get the ball like Aguero or Suarez, to dribble (past) three of four guys, to hit the shot. They are different players.
“Some strikers they are players with fantastic individual qualities and they can by themselves do what their team is not able to do.
“Our strikers are not individual players, they are not players with this kind of quality, with this kind of potential.”
Mourinho said he was “not critical” of his forwards.
He continued: "The other guys they play with their strength and their strength is super individual quality: the dribble, the shot, the sharp movement, the individual action, so by themselves they resolve problems.
"We don't have this kind of striker."
Mourinho did praise his forwards’ all-round contribution to the team.
"They are more in the team organisation and in the team dynamic and they do other jobs. That's why I'm not critical of them. They do other things for the team.
"In this moment our strikers, the number of goals is quite frustrating. Not just for me, especially for them. But their contribution is good.”
Meanwhile Mourinho laughed off talk of a renewed bid for Wayne Rooney in the January transfer window following Chelsea’s pursuit of him beginning of the season and hinted that he would wait until the summer to make major additions to his squad.
He added: "The market opens in January, but as I was saying, I don't think we will be there, buying or selling.
"If something happens it will happen (with) one player because the occasion was very good, because something happened that push us in that direction, but we are not smelling the market and waiting desperately for January 1 to do something.
"We always thought to try the best with this team and wait for the right moment to improve the squad and be strong."[/article]
Mourinho returned to the club as manager in the summer after Benitez had a six-month spell in charge at Stamford Bridge, where he led the team to the Europa League trophy and third in the Premier League.
Chelsea have struggled for consistency under Mourinho but are just five points behind leaders Arsenal in the title race and have reached the last 16 of the Champions League. They take on Crystal Palace at home tomorrow having already lost to Everton, Newcastle and Stoke and Mourinho said: “I knew it would be tougher [this time]. Some managers choose easy jobs, some tough, I choose a hard one but I enjoy it.
“This is not a criticism but the last manager Benitez knew he would not be the manager for the next year and he was chasing results. He was not worried about the building of a team with a certain style.
“I didn’t have a real base to start. For many reasons we knew the situation needs time and patience.
“But it would be easy to say wait for five, six years, that’s not me or Chelsea or what we want for the players. We want to build and chase results. We’re not favourites but want to feel as favourites.”[/article]
[article=http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/jose-mourinho-chelsea-are-now-a-cup-team-rather-than-title-contenders-9002466.html]Life for Jose Mourinho at Chelsea was never going to be as easy as it was first time around. Back in 2004, he inherited a squad from Claudio Ranieri that were far superior to the one he has at his disposal now.
Despite his best efforts, the 50-year-old is still not sure what his players will produce from one match to the next in this most unpredictable of Premier League seasons.
While last week heralded an improved return of nine goals in three games, they conceded seven and this weakness led to a third League defeat of the campaign at Stoke on Saturday.
It has been more than three years since Chelsea last showed the ability to perform on a consistent enough basis to win the title under then manager Carlo Ancelotti.
Cup success, both domestically and in Europe, may have continued but Mourinho is fully aware that the transformation back to genuine contenders for the Premier League is a hard one.
He said: “It’s difficult to keep this consistency. One part of it is impossible to control because of the quality and mentality of the opponent and the nature of the competition.
“It’s very, very hard to get the run of five, six, seven, eight consecutive matches like some big teams can do in other countries where the League profile is completely different.
“The other point is for every player to get and feel comfortable with the responsibility of trying to do that, especially new people coming from clubs where they were not pushed in that direction.
“Even for the ones that were here before, by November and December [in the past] they were feeling it’s impossible to get the title so they started losing motivation and focusing more on the cup competitions, where you don’t need that stability — you just need to win one game here, one match next month and try to win a cup.
“To win a League, consistency is needed and the players must feel comfortable with that state of mind.”
Winning during the busy festive period was a hallmark of both title triumphs under Mourinho in 2005 and 2006. Chelsea boasted a 100 per cent record over Christmas during that time, which is why he doesn’t fear the fixture list that includes games against Arsenal, Swansea, Liverpool and Southampton by New Year’s Day.
He added on Chelsea TV: “I like [the Christmas period]. It’s very difficult but is an enjoyable period. I think players must be very strong, especially from the mental point of view.
“Strong squads help but the manager has to be always worried with the details and try to make some changes to try to keep freshness where you feel the team need to be stronger from the physical point of view. We are playing very well and playing attacking football the way we want to. But we have to stop individual mistakes in our box and score goals in numbers according to what we are producing.
“We know that at the same time, the reality of this incredibly difficult Premier League season gives you the notion that everyone is losing points, not just us. It keeps everybody not far from the target.
“This is our motivation because we are five points from the leaders [Arsenal] and we play them in just over a week’s time, so we can recover.”
Still, given that Mourinho only lost once in the League during his first season at the helm and has already seen his side concede more goals (17) than they did during the whole of that campaign (15), there must be an element of concern.
“It’s the evolution of things,” he said, as he prepared for tomorrow’s clash against Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge. “I always say that it’s not fair to compare seasons or players from different generations.
“The Premier League is completely different. It is better like this.
“Of course it’s not what we want to be happening, everybody wants to be leading the League and not losing a game but this [everyone dropping points] is the reality.”[/article]
[article=http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/my-strikers-dont-have-quality-and-potential-of-suarez-and-aguero-admits-jose-mourinho-9003683.html]Jose Mourinho has admitted that his trio of star strikers do not have the same 'quality' and 'potential' as the likes of Luis Suarez and Sergio Aguero.
Samuel Eto’o, Fernando Torres and Demba Ba cost Chelsea £57.5m between them - but have scored just four Premier League goals so far this season, while Liverpool’s Suarez has 15 and Manchester City’s Aguero 12.
Mourinho said: “Do I expect them to score a little bit more? Yes. Do we need a little bit more? Yes.
“But we cannot compare players with different qualities. We cannot expect Demba Ba or Fernando to get the ball like Aguero or Suarez, to dribble (past) three of four guys, to hit the shot. They are different players.
“Some strikers they are players with fantastic individual qualities and they can by themselves do what their team is not able to do.
“Our strikers are not individual players, they are not players with this kind of quality, with this kind of potential.”
Mourinho said he was “not critical” of his forwards.
He continued: "The other guys they play with their strength and their strength is super individual quality: the dribble, the shot, the sharp movement, the individual action, so by themselves they resolve problems.
"We don't have this kind of striker."
Mourinho did praise his forwards’ all-round contribution to the team.
"They are more in the team organisation and in the team dynamic and they do other jobs. That's why I'm not critical of them. They do other things for the team.
"In this moment our strikers, the number of goals is quite frustrating. Not just for me, especially for them. But their contribution is good.”
Meanwhile Mourinho laughed off talk of a renewed bid for Wayne Rooney in the January transfer window following Chelsea’s pursuit of him beginning of the season and hinted that he would wait until the summer to make major additions to his squad.
He added: "The market opens in January, but as I was saying, I don't think we will be there, buying or selling.
"If something happens it will happen (with) one player because the occasion was very good, because something happened that push us in that direction, but we are not smelling the market and waiting desperately for January 1 to do something.
"We always thought to try the best with this team and wait for the right moment to improve the squad and be strong."[/article]
