What is the point of winning the Premier League if Chelsea sack Jose Mourinho now? The whole year, you are fighting for every point. You sacrifice every day — you analyse, train, don’t eat pizzas or go out and have to deal with pressure — you come through everything, win it and then the minute after you put the trophy down, it means nothing?

I am in football every day and with everything people say about Chelsea it feels like they won the League two years ago but it was basically yesterday. I understand critics work like that but I will never accept it or say it is normal. It is unbelievable how quickly people turn on clubs. Chelsea should get more credit, especially the manager.

It is not like he is a one-season wonder. He has been doing it for 10 years now, every year with every club in every country. He started from nothing — he did not have a platform as an ex-player where you get extra sympathy from the start. Instead he earned his success.

I am a big fan of his. He polarises people but most of the best managers do.

A lot of those people that hate him do so out of jealousy. At the top of Mount Everest, the sun is shining the brightest but also you must deal with the strongest wind.

Everybody wants to be him or a guy at that level. Whether you like or dislike him, you still have to respect him. Nobody can deny he is one of the best managers around.

All those people who are questioning his methods have to remember one thing: he has never changed. From the start and through all the success he has achieved, whether it is the way he plays or the way he talks, he is the same.

His first press conference at Chelsea, where he called himself the ‘Special One’, was just like his last one in midweek. The words were different but they were delivered in the same style.

Tomorrow’s match at Upton Park will be my first competitive game against him — I managed Besiktas in a friendly against Chelsea before — and although his side are struggling, there is never a good time to play them.

We are confident of continuing our good form but we know they are capable of anything. They had a solid performance against Dynamo Kiev. They have class and haven’t lost it.

Okay, they have been below their best but that makes it a very dangerous time to face them. Chelsea are a wounded lion. The way they are going to approach this game will not be like the past where they may think they have the form to win easily. Now they are going to be very, very motivated because they cannot fail.

What makes it a good time for us is that we have a good momentum behind us. Beating Crystal Palace meant more to me than another victory as West Ham manager. Winning at Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City are more historical but we had to show both sides of our game evenly there. We had to be solid as in the other games but then you have more of the ball so you have to deliver a complete performance and not just defend all the time.

The mood here is very good. There is no better way to gain confidence than by winning matches and playing well. And there is nothing wrong about being positive under one condition: you have to know your basic jobs and respect that doing those well got us into this position. It didn’t come out of nothing. It happened because we stayed grounded and did our work.

We then have a chance against any team in the Premier League. If we don’t do that, then we are in trouble.

We have a huge respect for Chelsea but we are not afraid of them.

SAME AGAIN THE ORDER FOR ARSENAL

Arsenal have something to hold on to now in the Champions League. I was at Emirates to watch them beat Bayern Munich and that game should give them hope as they try to qualify.

Bayern dominated possession and Petr Cech made a few good saves, but you always need your goalkeeper against a team like that. The challenge for them now is to do it again in Germany.

It looked bad before the game and they could have had no points after four games because to lose to Bayern twice would have been normal. Olympiakos beating Dinamo Zagreb was not the best result for them but Arsenal have so much pace up front with Alexis Sanchez, Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain that they can play the same way and beat Bayern again.

MY DREAM SATURDAY…

I am a dreamer because dreams are the best motivator but only if they are realistic. There should be a very small gap between plans and dreams.

We want to stay as high in the table for as long as possible but let me put it this way: when we beat Crystal Palace, we were on a coach, driving back home and at that moment we were third. Arsenal were playing later in the day against Watford.

I, and I think most of us, when it was 0-0, didn’t want Watford to win and us to stay third. I wanted Arsenal to win because, okay, we would drop to fourth, but Watford would stay far away from us. If we stay in the top four, it will be brilliant but what we have to do first is get safe.