Mourinho rules out quadruple in one season
Jose Mourinho claims it is an impossible dream for an English club to scoop four trophies in one season.
The Chelsea boss will set out to win every competition he enters this season - and has an impressive squad of talent at his disposal after signing Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack in the summer - but he fears a clean sweep of Premiership, Champions League, FA Cup and Carling Cup is still out of reach.
Mourinho said: “My personal opinion is that you can’t do it. I don’t think so. Because it is modern football and that means a lot of matches during the season.
“Modern football means an unbelievable calendar for the national teams, players from a lot of different countries, different continents, different competitions to play in and so much travelling.
“You arrive at a position where you have to make your options. You have to rotate players. You have to decide which games are more important and which competition is more important.
“I don’t think it’s possible to do it. This is England – a country where you find a lot of teams with ambitions to win the same thing.
“I was in Portugal and I won everything in one season. Okay, I won in Europe but in the other competitions only Porto, Benfica and Sporting could win.
“In England, when you go to the cup competitions, you have 10, 12, 14 teams all fighting for the trophy.
“Even in the Premiership you have a minimum of four teams fighting for it and when you go to the Champions League you have six, seven, eight clubs in Europe all with the same ambition.”
Mourinho launches his quest for a third successive Premiership title at home to Manchester City tomorrow and, despite his summer spending spree, the Chelsea boss finds himself short of players.
Claude Makelele, Robert Huth, Petr Cech, Geremi and Joe Cole are all out and Michael Ballack is very doubtful for the opener.
Chelsea are close to adding Khalid Boulahrouz to the squad after agreeing an undisclosed fee for Hamburg’s Dutch international defender yesterday.
Boulahrouz, who can play centre-back or either full-back, will be in London this weekend to undergo a medical and discuss personal terms. He will not be available for the game against City but against Middlesborough in midweek.
He will be the sixth summer recruit for the champions and Mourinho admits he has made changes in a bid to play in a different style.
Mourinho said: “I wanted to change because I prefer to win 2-0 than 1-0. If you ask me if I prefer 2-0 to 6-5, it would be 2-0. But if it’s 1-0 or 2-0, I prefer to win 2-0. If you can improve that, without losing the qualities that made us champions, then you have to try to add these different qualities.
“I’m not saying I’m gambling. We feel that we want to change a little bit. We do it because we feel we can improve.”
The arrival of Boulahrouz, 25, will not affect the move for Ashley Cole.
Mourinho said: “I don’t think it’s a secret that we feel we are waiting for one or two defenders because we don’t want to lose what we’ve had for the last two years. We have always had a very strong defence and whenever we’ve had a player out or injured we always had an answer.”
Mourinho will emulate Alex Ferguson if he can complete his hat-trick of titles.
But he reassured Chelsea fans that the achievement would not drive him away from Stamford Bridge in search of a fresh challenge.
Mourinho said: “I have a contract and I want to stay. If we win three titles, I will want to win a fourth. If we lose the third I want to win it back.
“If the club are not happy, then that is another situation but at the moment, speaking from my heart, I love to be here.
“I did think about leaving last season but now we are starting from zero again and I look forward to 38 matches. As a manager, I want more respect, not love. I have a lot of love already. I don’t need love.”
