It is too soon to start searching for silver linings to Chelsea’s campaign and it would be a mistake, according to José Mourinho, for the club to prioritise success in Europe over the defence of their Barclays Premier League title. Indeed, far from narrowing horizons, the Chelsea manager believes that his team can win four trophies this season.
All things are possible, Mourinho says, despite an insipid start in which Chelsea have taken 11 points from nine games and lost to Porto in the Champions League.
“We can win all four, we can lose all four,” he said before this evening’s game against Dynamo Kiev. “I think it is [possible], but I think it’s also possible to lose all four. We are in October. Everything is open. We can win all four, we can lose all four.”
Chelsea won the Champions League in 2012 under the guidance of Roberto Di Matteo after a disappointing domestic campaign, but Mourinho disputes that the club made European success a priority three years ago. “Chelsea were struggling to try to finish top four and never prioritised,” Mourinho said.
“Never. It happened in that season because it happened. Not because Chelsea prioritised. When you prioritise in this league you have a big risk, which is the risk of not winning the Champions League and [not] finishing top four and not playing Champions League the next season. So we cannot prioritise in this league. We have to go all the way and make sure we finish top four.”
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The Chelsea manager believes that his players are slowly rebuilding confidence after a morale-sapping start and that he needs them to maintain optimism to find consistency.
“You know we need to keep the tactical awareness, the tactical discipline,” he said. “The spirit. The effort. The concentration, because concentration is fundamental. And step by step, bring with good results the confidence levels up. And confidence levels are coming with results.”
And yet his criticism of Ruben Loftus-Cheek, it could be argued, will do little to boost the teenager’s spirit. The 19-year-old was substituted at half-time against Aston Villa on Saturday after his manager was dismissive of his workrate.
“I don’t think he has to lose confidence,” Mourinho said. “I think he has to look to the intensity and the defensive tactical work that people like Ramires, [Cesc] Fàbregas did and he didn’t. And try just to compare himself with others and understand why I didn’t keep him in the game for 90 minutes.”
This represents a setback for Loftus-Cheek. In spite of his popularity among the supporters, his manager is still to be fully won over, having publicly castigated his attitude in a post-season friendly against Sydney in June.
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Nemanja Matic, too, could be forgiven for having a crisis of confidence. Matic replaced Loftus-Cheek on Saturday, but Mourinho pointed out that when the Serbia midfielder made an error he was evidently bereft, whereas if he had been feeling confident he would not have been disappointed.
“I try to make him choose the decisions that are more difficult to make a mistake,” Mourinho said of the player he brought on at half-time in the 3-1 defeat by Southampton but took off again in the 73rd minute.
“When you are a little bit fragile, simple. Make it simple. Think quick, make the right decision. Take the ball out of the pressure zone. Don’t be worried about making a beautiful pass. Make just sure that you don’t lose the ball, because if you lose the ball, you lose confidence. So, you know, step by step, step by step.”
Mourinho maintains that he was not troubled by the defeat by Porto last month and that his side could absorb defeat in Ukraine tonight. “Even if we lose this match we still have nine points to play [for] to make a possible [total of] 12,” he said.
Mourinho is, though, annoyed that Dynamo Kiev played on Friday, giving them an extra 24 hours of recovery time. “We have to compensate that with tactical understanding of what we have to do, [and] have a real tactical plan to compensate that,” he said.
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“Twenty-four hours in football is a lot, especially with a Tuesday match.”
Having been critical of Eden Hazard’s contribution so far this season, Mourinho cryptically revealed that the forward “trained like Eden” in preparation for the game in Kiev. Meanwhile, in response to speculation that Radamel Falcao would be happy to leave the club in January, Mourinho expressed astonishment.
“First of all, I don’t know if it’s true,” he said. “He didn’t say anything to me about that, and I speak with him every day. It’s quite strange the press know something I don’t know, and my club doesn’t know. We don’t have one single information about it. What he has to do to play more? That is a question. He has to give us more than Diego [Costa]. We normally play with one striker. There’s direct competition between the players, two for one position.”
● Mourinho’s grasp of English was too good to escape punishment from the FA for his derogatory comments about referees’ integrity. In the FA’s written reasons for giving Mourinho a one-match stadium ban, suspended for 12 months, and a fine of £50,000 after he suggested that referees are “afraid to give decisions to Chelsea”, it rejected any notion that the language barrier posed a mitigating circumstance.