José Mourinho has openly criticised the desire and commitment of his Chelsea players and cast doubt on how many “serial champions” there are in his Premier League title-winning squad as he seeks to shrug them out of a desperately inconsistent start to the season.
The manager has returned to Porto, where he established his reputation by winning the Uefa and European Cups a little over a decade ago, for Tuesday’s Champions League group game and will face a team with Iker Casillas, his former goalkeeper at Real Madrid, at the Estádio do Dragão. The pair’s relationship had fractured badly during Mourinho’s three-year spell at the Bernabéu and there has been no contact since the coach left Spain in 2013.
Yet, while that confrontation has drawn the focus in Portugal, the manager is more preoccupied with restoring his current side’s qualities and has threatened to drop those underperforming senior players and “go with the kids” if the team’s form rules them out of challenging for honours. Mourinho was disgusted with the first-half display at Newcastle on Saturday, pinpointing six of his players as having put in “very bad performances”.
“Since half-time [at St James’ Park], they know who they are,” said the manager. “The matches where we performed with a consistent attitude were the matches we won, so we need to learn how to be consistent again. Physically there’s no problem. Tactically it’s the same. Clearly it’s an attitude perspective of some individuals. And when you have individuals with that unstable attitude in terms of motivation, desire and commitment, you will pay.
“There are two sorts of champions. There are those who win something, and there are lots of them. But there are the other champions who, during their career, win one, two, three, four, five, 10 or 20 titles. In this club we have 25 champions from last year, but serial champions in this squad? John Terry, Jon Mikel [Obi] and [Branislav] Ivanovic are serial champions. Almost every season they have something in the pocket. But how many other serial champions do we have?
“Last year we were champions, but the point for me is are we serial champions? Of course it’s very difficult to win every season, but you can be a serial champion in your approach and your attitude. If we fight every minute of every game and in the end someone has two more points, then we don’t go from champions to losers. Not at all. If you lose the Champions League final to Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain or Bayern Munich you are not a loser. Mentally I can say I am a serial champion. I can be five or 10 years without winning a title, but I will still be a serial champion in my approach and my attitude. This is the problem we have at this moment. We have champions, but not serial champions.
“Nobody understood it but when the Arsenal fans were singing against Chelsea last week and I was tapping my arm, I was saying: ‘Look at the shirts.’ We have the [golden] Premier League badge on our shirts because we’re champions. But one thing is to be champion once and another is the mentality. I don’t demand that they’re champions every season. In England that’s impossible, especially at Chelsea because when we win the title it’s the end of the world and nobody [outside the club] is happy. But you can be a serial champion in your attitude. And for me that’s the point.”
Mourinho will restore Diego Costa – who is in the middle of a three-match domestic ban for his clash with Laurent Koscielny in the victory over Arsenal earlier this month – to his starting lineup at the Dragão, with the Spain international having taken his suspension poorly. “Like everyone here, he is not happy,” said the manager. John Terry is also expected to be recalled having missed the 2-2 draw on Tyneside.
This will be Mourinho’s third return to Porto with Chelsea though his first visit to the city in eight years, with the Portuguese insisting he will “switch off” his emotions during the game. There would be “no problem” if he comes face to face with Casillas, who will be making a record 152nd appearance in the competition. Regardless, the Chelsea manager is expecting an immediate reaction from his team – who won their opening Group G match comfortably against Maccabi Tel Aviv – in the wake of Saturday’s toils.
“They fight and want to improve, but we have some players I want more from,” he added. “I look for consistency. If we don’t find it, we become a Newcastle. Everyone knows when Newcastle play Chelsea they play amazingly well but against other teams, not so well. This happens with most of the teams whose objective is to stay between eighth and 16th in the league.
“They win today, draw tomorrow, three points here, one point there. But when you want to be a big team and to win you have to be consistent in your attitude. At this moment it’s difficult to win the Premier League, but possible. It’s difficult to win the Champions League, but possible. It’s difficult to win the cups, but possible. I’ve explained to the players that when the situation is open, I have to try and prepare the kids for their future and, at the same time, bring the best out of the players with more experience.
“But if the season becomes ‘closed’ and we can’t win trophies, I will go just with the kids instead. It makes no sense to play the older players when you have nothing to win. There can be a moment where I will look to the kids and say: ‘Let’s go, non-stop.’ I am ruthless. But at the moment, everything is open.”
