Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho spoke to the media ahead of tomorrow’s crunch game against Arsenal at the Stamford Bridge. He started by saying midfielder Willian is out due to injury, but all the other players are picked in the squad in spite of some doubts. He also revealed that the players, who are in doubt are Oscar and his new signing Pedro Rodriguez.
Mourinho also said that he is very happy after the team’s performance against Maccabi Tel-Aviv in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday and insisted tomorrow’s match against Arsenal must be isolated from all contexts as neither his record over Wenger nor the Community Shield win for Arsenal matter.
Chelsea got off to a poor start in the Premier League and there are some question marks over the form of Chelsea’s main man Eden Hazard and Branislav Ivanovic. The media also reported that Mourinho had some rifts with the team members and that is the reason why he benched John Terry for the match against Maccabi and made Cahill as the captain.
For that Mourinho replied he does not criticize Ivanovic and doesn’t separate any individual performance from the team’s performance. He also a took a dig at the media and quoted that media always look for drama stories when a team loses matches, but the effect of loss of confidence is the reality. He added that the pundits can criticise him for his decision, but not for his relationship with his players, as there are zero problems and dropping Terry does not change anything since Terry is still his man. Mourinho also said that Hazard will still take penalties for the club and hailed him as the best in England. He also assured that Hazard will soon put up a Man of the Match performance. Mourinho emphasised that Oscar is a good player and is important against defensive sides as he is so creative.
Speaking on former Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech, Mourinho welcomed the goalkeeper with open arms as Cech is his rival for just 90 minutes and his side’s dressing room will be open for the Arsenal goalkeeper once the game is over.