Jose Mourinho: I deserve the criticism but there is no crisis at Chelsea

Blues boss says it will take time to change style
Simon Johnson22 September 2013

Jose Mourinho today admitted he deserves to be criticised for Chelsea’s poor start but insisted he should only be judged at the end of the season.

Chelsea take on Fulham at Stamford Bridge tomorrow having lost their last two matches against Everton and Basle in the Premier League and the Champions League respectively.

If they fail to beat their west London rivals, it will also be the first time for more than a decade that Mourinho has gone five games without a victory.

Mourinho admits the club have not started as well as he would have liked after his return to Stamford Bridge, but says he is changing their style of play and that it would take time for the players to adapt.

“Scrutiny is normal,” he said. “I have been in football for a long time so I have learned not to be surprised by scrutiny, for there to be opinions and critics. I am not surprised, I am not worried.

“For me it is not a crisis. It is two bad results. I have a job to do. I know where I want to go and the steps I have to take.

“When you want to build something different and players are adapted, comfortable with philosophy for years before, it’s more difficult.

“The easiest thing is to arrive and not to change, to go in the same direction. If you want to do something different, there is a period that results are not good. I understand if people put question marks.

“We lost nothing. If people want to do comparisons, we didn’t finish third in our Champions League group, we didn’t get relegated to the Europa League and we didn’t finish third in the Premier League. We lost one match in the Premier League and the other five contenders have all lost a match except Liverpool, who are top.

“In the Champions League, we lost a match we can’t lose — I agree with that — but we were not relegated to the Europa League.”

When quizzed further about whether he was worried about how the first month of the season has gone, he added: “If you like to make comparisons, you have to wait. It’s not the way you start, it’s the way you finish.

“The perfect way is to start good and end good, but out of the two it’s better to finish well and start bad rather than start good and finish bad.

“I don’t like the way Chelsea were playing the last couple of years, the club didn’t like it. We have the players to change, we want to play a different style.

“I always said I do not want to be protected by what I did in the past. I have been asked about missing Didier [Drogba], but that’s history, we want to change and are going to change.”

Brazilian midfielder Ramires returns from suspension for the match at Stamford Bridge, while captain John Terry is also expected to return to the starting line-up.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in