José Mourinho said losing to Bradford City on Saturday would be a disgrace and that Chelsea must risk complicating their challenge for the Premier League because his mentality prevents him from making one competition a priority over another.

Chelsea host Manchester City at Stamford Bridge next weekend in a match that promises to have major ramifications for the title race but Mourinho says that that battle will not lessen his focus on the FA Cup fourth-round meeting with Bradford or Tuesday’s Capital One Cup semi-final second leg against Liverpool.

Although Mourinho acknowledged that he will make some alterations to his usual line-up for the visit of Bradford – with Kurt Zouma to start in place of the rested John Terry – the manager said it would be easier to win the Premier League if Chelsea were eliminated from all cup competitions but he cannot being himself to prepare for a defeat.

“To help the title race, the best thing is to lose against Bradford and to lose against Liverpool and to lose against Paris Saint-Germain [in the Champions League] and to play only Premier League until the end of the season,” Mourinho said. “This is the perfect situation but not with us. Not with our mentality, not with our way of thinking about our job, not with Chelsea’s DNA. We want to go the more we can.

“The other day a coach of a big team was knocked out of the cup and he was saying, ‘Good, very good. This is perfect for us. Now we can focus on the other competitions.’ If I lose against Bradford, I don’t say that. I say it’s a disgrace.

“This is the way you are, the way you think. I prefer it very difficult and congested and lots of matches and risk of losing everything – there is a risk there – but I can’t choose matches. I can’t choose competitions. I can’t. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to face my players, how to face my fans, by saying, ‘This is not a competition we want to win.’ We want to win. We want to win. When we lose, we lose. But we want to win.”

André Schürrle and Mohamed Salah are also in line to play against Bradford, with Mourinho claiming both players remain part of his plans for the remainder of the season despite being linked with transfers. Neither player has been able to dislodge Eden Hazard or Willian on a regular basis and a departure by one or both would pave the way for the Colombia winger Juan Cuadrado to join from Fiorentina. Salah is a target for Roma while Mourinho said Schürrle would be allowed to leave only if Chelsea received a “phenomenal offer” and the German was “super-keen” to go.