Jose Mourinho relishing new season with HIS own Chelsea team... and he wants the Premier League title to be his for a third time



Jose Mourinho has brought in four players to Chelsea over the summer

Filipe Luis, Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas and now Didier Drogba are aboard

Chelsea boss believes Costa is the key to his side's problems up front

Mourinho looking for his fourth title after triumphs in 2005 and 2006

'The Motivated One' wants to banish the kind of results that slipped Chelsea up last season - and refers to defeats to Palace, Stoke and Newcastle



Jose Mourinho might have talked himself into trouble again, not with the football authorities on this occasion but with his wife.

It turns out Chelsea’s manager has not been telling her about the rather too regular deductions in his wage packet. More specifically, the thousands Chelsea take from him whenever they have to settle his account with the Football Association.

Three times he was fined last season, a total of £26,000 for two one-man pitch invasions and what he now appears to concede was a sarcastic attack on match officials. And three times, quite rightly, he took the hit. ‘The club pay the fine, and it comes out of my wages,’ he admits. ‘My wife doesn’t know.’



VIDEO Scroll down to watch new striker Diego Costa get nutmegged by Azpilicueta



Race to the title: Mourinho (left) is happy with the signings he has made ahead of the new season



New mould: Costa, Fabregas and Luis joined Chelsea this summer, along with Drogba

Mourinho is in playful mood as he looks ahead to the new season. He reveals his secret fine-paying policy with a devilish grin.



He shares his excitement for his new team, declaring them now ready to win the Barclays Premier League thanks to the arrival of Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas and Filipe Luis. He says ‘the Happy One’ is also ‘the Motivated One’.

And he states his intention to continue raging ‘against the machine’ whenever he feels it necessary. Injustice is something he simply cannot ignore, he insists, and he makes no apology for what he regards as fighting for his rights and the rights of his players; even the rights of ‘English football’, such is the responsibility he seems determined to shoulder.

A year ago, on his return to Chelsea, Mourinho talked of a team in transition. Now, as he sits in this beautiful part of Austria he has chosen for pre-season training, he considers himself to be in charge of a team that is just the way he wants it; complete with the striker he often complained of missing last season.

Jokes: Gary Cahill cycles back to the team's hotel after training in Austria New look: Here's how Jose Mourinho's Chelsea could look for the 2014-15 Premier League season

Costa is the class attacker he was craving, and a player Mourinho admires not just for his obvious skill and athleticism. He likes him for the way he has had to battle his way to the top, and he likes him because a combination of these qualities might just make him the true heir to Didier Drogba.

‘When you look at the profile of the player, it’s not just about the physical profile or the tactical profile,’ says Mourinho. ‘It’s also the psychological profile. I have known Diego since he was 17 and he went to Portugal. Life was not easy for him.

‘He has always to fight a lot to do things. In Portugal, he was a Braga player but it was a good team. He had to go on loan to a championship team to be back to Braga.

‘Then Atletico Madrid bought him but, after that, he went to Celta Vigo because Atletico had (Sergio) Aguero.

‘Then he had to go to Rayo Vallecano because Atletico had (Radamel) Falcao. He came back to Atletico when Falcao went.

Saviour: Diego Costa has been brought in to sort out Chelsea's problems up front New boy: Drogba returns to Chelsea after two years away from west London

‘At Atletico he had to make people forget Aguero and Falcao. Without them (last season) they won the title and reached the Champions League final. But the guy had to fight a lot to arrive there, so I think he is the kind of guy who is afraid of nothing and ready for everything.’

Costa arrived at Chelsea ‘thanks to his legs and to his heart’, says Mourinho. ‘That’s what he said to me,’ the manager explains. ‘He’s been given nothing for free.’

The striker has, however, been blessed with talent. The kind of talent Mourinho describes with infectious enthusiasm.

‘It is easy to see a big, strong guy using his body, attacking spaces, holding up the ball and pressing people,’ he says. ‘But, with proper football eyes, the guy is much more than that. The movement is incredible, the intelligence is amazing, the choices he makes in terms of movement are fantastic.

‘The guy is a real top striker. I can say that because I’ve known him for a long time. Even the older players with us — Ivanovic, Terry — they say it’s fantastic that he’s coming because he is so strong.



Boss: Manager Jose Mourinho takes charge of his training session ahead of the new Premier League season

'They say he is good in the air but, after three or four days of training, they change their opinion. They say he is much better than that. They thought about his physical presence, but he is much more than that.’

Mourinho is happy to compare him to Drogba because he is confident Costa will prove himself every bit as successful. In certain areas perhaps he will prove even better.

‘Didier is still better than him in the air,’ he says. ‘Costa is good in air, Didier is super good.

‘But Diego is more powerful than Didier when attacking spaces. And he arrives with more experience at the highest level. When Didier joined us, he was playing in the French league, having played just a couple of matches with Marseille in the Champions League. He was not even playing in World Cups with the Ivory Coast.

‘Diego is made. Physically, mentally, Diego is an end-product. The Premier League is difficult and he knows; he is ready.

‘To play with the Chelsea responsibilities and pressure, he knows and he is ready, too.

Thrice: Mourinho is looking for his third Premier League title after winning in 2005 (above) and 2006

‘I don’t think it will be difficult for him to succeed. I feel he is the right guy to help the team to win things. He just needs to work with the new players, the new team and the new coach to adapt his football to a different way of playing.’

With Costa and Fabregas he sees a team that has undergone ‘a change of profile’ with ‘different qualities’.

He adds: ‘This season we went to the market with different objectives. We felt last season we had a team. Not a super team, but we had a team. With that team we were fighting for the title until almost the end and were in the Champions League semi-final.



'From mid-season we were feeling that we needed critical surgery, new players but instead of buying five, six, seven, eight, we made a very early decision to go and attack three points where we felt we needed a real improvement.

‘As well as a striker we needed a player for the midfield with a different football profile and we had two or three options. But my club did fantastic, the way they killed the situation with Fabregas. What I did was explained to the player what I want from him, explained to the player what was waiting for him, tried to make the player think it was the perfect move for him.

Dwelling: Chelsea's loss to Crystal Palace in March was a bitter blow to their title hopes

‘After that, my club was fantastic. The club resolved it in record time and the way they did it with Barcelona was, for me, a big surprise. I was expecting Fabregas to still be training with Barcelona and us here waiting for him. But it was done before the World Cup.

‘After that, we needed a real left back. We always felt Luis was a stable player that we needed who gave us multi-solutions. I can play Azpilicueta right back and Ivanovic centre back because of Filipe.’

Fabregas, he says, is a player who should enable Chelsea to address problems they experienced last season. Against their main rivals they were superb. Had it simply been a competition between the top six sides in the Premier League, they would have won the title. But they dropped points to teams in the lower half of the table.

‘Fabregas is a player of control,’ he says. ‘He’s a player that wants the ball, a player that needs the ball. In these matches away, we will have much more control of the game and much more initiative than before.



'Against Crystal Palace we deserved to lose. But we shouldn’t deserve to lose against Palace. We lost at Stoke and Newcastle too, the same profile of games as Palace.

Regret: Mourinho believes Chelsea did not deserve to lose to Stoke earlier in the 2013-14 season

‘During the whole season, the first away goal one of my strikers scored was at Southampton, on New Year’s Day. So, from August until the end of December, my strikers didn’t score away. This is the situation. Will it be a problem for Diego to play at Palace or Stoke? Not at all. I think they will be the matches he will most enjoy.’

The last time he guided Chelsea to the title, Mourinho had a team that dominated English football in a manner even Sir Alex Ferguson considered remarkable. They were strong, powerful, seemingly indomitable. Mourinho is more cautious about Chelsea’s chances of securing silverware in the same fashion.

‘At this moment English football is very dangerous,’ he says. ‘For all the top five and six teams it’s very dangerous. You have to prepare your team to be champions if you want to finish in the top four. If you say your objective is to finish fourth and go to the Champions League, and you organise your squad and your objectives to finish in the top four, there’s a big chance you’ll finish outside it.

‘From my perspective as Chelsea manager, I say “we want to be champions, we’re ready to be champions, and we’re not looking at other teams”. I have the squad I want and the right profile of squad to attack the title. The situation is dangerous for everybody. But I start the season saying we want to be champions.’ So will ‘the Happy One’ clash less with authority?

Captain: John Terry evades the challenge of Patrick Bamford a Cesc Fabregas watches on

‘At Chelsea I am always the Happy One,’ he says. ‘This season, I am the Happy One and the Motivated One. I have great motivation because I feel with these new guys we can take the team to a new level. But yes, it’s true. During last season a few things happened which, for me in English football, were a bit of a surprise.’

He remains convinced he was right to complain his team had to play on a Sunday before the second leg of a Champions League semi-final.

‘We were the only team in a position to play in the Champions League semi-final and nobody was helping us,’ he says. ‘Instead we had to play Liverpool 48 hours before we had to play a Champions League semi-final.

‘It is my duty because I am the manager of one of the country’s most important teams. It is my duty to try to do things for this football country. If you tell me it would be better to shut up and not make any comment about the fixtures — I would say yes, that is a comfortable and probably clever position in the modern world. But it is my duty to do it.

‘I will not be aggressive in my comments and I will not exaggerate in my criticism but I will always remind people about the situation. When an English team reaches the Champions League semi-final and they have to play 48 hours before, when they could perfectly well play Saturday, I will tell.

Cesc: New signing Fabregas seems to be settling in to life with Chelsea, a club he swore never to play for

‘When referees make poor decisions against my team I will say. Last season I tried to be sarcastic, but polite, never bringing the game into disrepute, or saying the referee wanted to cost us the title. I did this in a very simple way, but without legal reasons I was punished.’

Does he tire of raging against the machine?

‘The machine has to give me a positive answer,’ he says. ‘If there’s a personal situation between me and the machine and it answers in a personal way against me, then this is not the feeling I have.

‘I don’t think it’s fair the machine answers against me, or against my people. Rui Faria (banned for abusing the fourth official), he has a much bigger punishment because he’s my assistant? He’s a way to get into me? If that’s the case I don’t think I deserve that. I was away from English football for five years and nobody defended English football like I did. The machine of English football should feel that, and respect that.

‘I cannot change my personality, but I am one of them, I’m not against them. As an example, if at the end of next season another club is in the Champions League semi-final, I will fight for them in the same way.’