Ancelotti I’m in trouble if we don’t win Title
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INTER COACH'S FUTURE IN DOUBT
Mourinho: Could be forced out of Serie A
Mourinho was hired by Inter to win the Champions League, the likelihood of his imminent departure will be triggered if he fails to get past Chelsea on Tuesday at Stamford Bridge.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Channel 61 Football Frenzy : 3:45 am - (Wed Morning) (Live)
Champions League Game (2nd Leg)
Jose Mourinho could be at the centre of an incredible managerial merry go round which would see some of the biggest names and largest clubs switching their bosses, if he leaves Inter Milan this summer..Mourinho has emerged as the number one target for Spanish giants Real Madrid, who crashed out of the Champions League last week, and the "Special One" has a buy-out clause of £5.5 million written into his current contract, which expires in 2012..Premier League clubs Liverpool and Manchester City are also monitoring Mourinho's situation and a number of football insiders have tipped the Portuguese to make a return to England.
Mourinho was hired by Inter to win the Champions League, and despite denials to the contrary, the likelihood of his imminent departure will be triggered if he fails to get past Chelsea on Tuesday at Stamford Bridge.
The Anfield future of Rafael Benitez has once again been thrown into doubt with the Spaniard becoming overly frustrated with the club's American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, and his support in the boardroom continues to diminish.
The Sunday newspapers report that the Reds could be the subject of a £100 million investment bid from the New York-based Rhone Group and if the deal goes through the equity company would be eager for a new manager to give a fresh direction to the stagnating club.
However, if Mourinho were to return to the Premier League his most likely destination would be Manchester City, where almost limitless funds are in place to build a formidable side.
Soccernet recently revealed that Mancini is being touted as the next Italy coach, with the Italian federation anxious to name their new boss pre-World Cup to avoid all the diversions and distractions about the identity of Marcello Lippi's successor after the tournament in South Africa.
And if City fail to make it into the top four this term, Mancini will be axed, with a contract that has a break point in the summer to be reviewed depending on the teams Champions league position.
As Soccernet has again led the way, Bordeaux boss Laurent Blanc has already been sounded out to succeed Mourinho at Inter.
At Anfield, the two front runners are Martin O'Neill and Alex McLeish, with the Birmingham boss the cheap option as he has a relatively small £1 million buy out clause, while O'Neill would be much more expensive to prise away from Aston Villa.
Mourinho's first choice would be Manchester United, but with no sign of Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement, he would then go for Liverpool, providing they had new funding, but wouldn't say no to becoming by far the world's No.1 paid coach at Manchester City
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Originally posted by Poignant:
ETO'O DREAMT OF GETTING WINNER AT CHELSEA
We'll win the cup if we beat Blues
ETO'O: Determined to knock Chelsea out
SAMUEL ETO'O has warned that Chelsea will need to produce their best performance of the season to knock Inter out of the Champions League.
The Cameroon international says he has already dreamed of scoring the winner at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday.
And he believes he will go on to lift the trophy for the third time in his career if the Serie A champions overcome Carlo Ancelotti's side.
Eto'o, who hoped the two clubs would meet in the final on May 22, scored the winner at Chelsea in February 2006 for his former club Barcelona. The Spanish giants went on to win the tournament against Arsenal in Paris.
He won it again last season, becoming only the second player to score in two separate Champions League finals when he netted against Manchester United in Rome.
His pedigree as a player for the big occasion stands up to the greatest scrutiny. And he insists the pressure of having to score could force some tension into Chelsea's performance.
"I always improve my own level when I play in a match of this size and I have already dreamed of scoring the winning goal at Stamford Bridge," he said.
"Chelsea are the favourites and the pressure is on them.
"Every minute that passes without a goal on Tuesday will add to that pressure. They will feel the tension.
"That doesn't mean we will be defensive. That would be a grave error.
"We will attack them from the start and if we win this game then I believe we will go on to win the Champions League.
"I have told Didier Drogba that we will create big problems for Chelsea and that they will have to produce their best performance of the season to beat us.
"I was annoyed when I saw the draw because I hoped this match would have been the final at the Bernabeu in May, but we don't fear Chelsea.
"We need to repeat the level we showed in the San Siro over the 90 minutes.
"For either of these clubs to be knocked out at this stage of the competition would be a major failure.
"The match is in our hands and if we stick to our usual style we will not be eliminated."
Eto'o, 29, may have used his comments to divert attention from Jose Mourinho's return to Stamford Bridge for the first time since his controversial departure in September 2009.
But he has his own history at the stadium after he complained at being subjected to racial abuse at the end of Barca's defeat there in 2005.
The three-times African Player of the Year accused members of Chelsea's ground staff of calling him a "monkey" after the 4-2 loss against Mourinho's side.
Eto'o almost moved to Manchester City last summer but the club's board pulled out of the deal when he demanded more money at the latter stage of negotiations.
Manchester United also considered signing him but were put off by his wage demands and what they saw as his dubious motives for wanting to play in the Premier League.
Despite his uneasy relations with English clubs, he does not feel in any awe of Chelsea's much-vaunted defenders, having got the better of them more than once in the past.
Pedigree
"Chelsea may have a great international back line but I have shown my own pedigree at the top level and I don't feel in any way inferior to them," he said.
"One thing I will say is that their defenders know me well from the times we played against each other when I was at Barcelona.
"This not is not a duel between Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti or between Samuel Eto'o and Didier Drogba. It is between Chelsea and Inter.
"Mourinho going back to Chelsea is a big thing for him but he is very professional and will be prepared for the situation.
"I had the same thing when I went back to the Nou Camp during the group stages earlier this season.
"I think this is a game where there will be goals - and we are determined to prevail."
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Mourinho "Everybody knows Mourinho doesn't lose at Stamford Bridge"
GLORY DAYS ... on his old stomping groundJOSE MOURINHO last night taunted Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti saying: Stamford Bridge is MY fortress not yours.
That is why the Special One is cockily claiming 'home' advantage for tomorrow's Champions League showdown with his former club.
The Inter Milan coach, who won six trophies in three years at Chelsea, quipped: "Everybody knows Mourinho doesn't lose at Stamford Bridge. My record is unbeatable. It is amazing - we were so strong for such a long time."
Mourinho, 47, insists he will not be affected by the emotion of the big night. He said: "I don't feel the reactions from the crowd. I will just sit there and play my game. But I don't hide that Chelsea are a very important part of my life."
Mourinho's record is certainly impressive. He never lost a league game at Stamford Bridge in more than three years in charge. In fact he has not lost at home in the league anywhere since February 23, 2002 - an eight-year unbeaten run stretching back to his days as Porto boss, throughout his Chelsea career and now on to Inter!
In stark contrast, Ancelotti did not even go eight months victorious at home - the recent 4-2 humiliation to Manchester City saw to that.
What's more, the Italian has already lost five league games in his first season at the Chelsea helm. That compared to just the one reverse for Mourinho in his debut season as he won the league by 12 points.
Mourinho recalled: "Nobody had ever won the title in their first year. But I went down in history." The Inter boss insists he will not go into the tie trying to protect a slender 2-1 advantage after the first leg in the San Siro.
He snapped: "I always play to win. That's why my record is so amazing."
But Blues striker Didier Drogba is out to wreck his old manager's Euro dream. He said: "The return of Mourinho will be special. "We shared beautiful things. We lived great moments together. But we must do everything to not let it distract us."
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Ancelotti claim his old club AC Milan would steal the Serie A title from Mourinho's city rivals Inter
CHELSEA boss Carlo Ancelotti has thrown down the gauntlet to Jose Mourinho insisting: "We'll be the third English team in the Champions League quarter-finals."
And Ancelotti added insult to injury by claiming his old club AC Milan would steal the Serie A title from Mourinho's city rivals Inter.
He said: "Milan's 4-0 defeat against Manchester United was bad - especially for someone who is a Milan fan like me.
"For years, Milan were at the top of European football but every now and then you can have a bad evening.
"Playing a decisive game like that without Nesta or Pato is not easy. But for all the love I have of Italian football, Chelsea will be the third English team in the quarter-finals."
And Ancelotti, speaking on Italian TV, added: "Milan can now concentrate completely on the Scudetto - four points is not a decisive gap to think that it cannot be overtaken."
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sian.
Chelsea need to work real hard to win.
If I am not wrong, if Chelsea scored a goal without conceding, Chelsea will go through, right? 2-2
However if Inter scored a goal, it means that Chelsea needs to score 3 goals to go through, right? 4-3
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Yup... But if Inter score 2, whether in normal time or extra time, Then Chelsea have to score 4 to go through... All this without Cech... and Jose's fantastic record at the Bridge...
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i hoping for a win from Chelsea
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Who is ‘Dr Needles’ and what, specifically, was Mourinho implying by dropping the name?
Puzzler: Petr Cech is carried off in the San Siro - but will he play in Tuesday's second leg?
Jose Mourinho does not make throwaway remarks. He does not do off-the-cuff. He prepared to meet the press as he prepared to meet the opposition. He knew his objective. Little was left to chance.
So when, after the first leg between Inter Milan and Chelsea, he was asked about the fitness of Petr Cech for the rematch, his response would have been as carefully considered as an attacking set-piece.
‘Of course I think Cech could play,’ Mourinho said. ‘I don’t listen to those reports that he’s out for a month or more. Dr Needles can get him healthy enough to play — and play well.’
For extra emphasis, maybe he should have made a pantomime show of covering his mouth, then slapping his wrist and saying: ‘Oops, silly me, now I’ve let the cat out of the bag.’ He might even regret not doing that because his cunning slur did not have the desired effect. Nobody picked up on such a delicately placed hint that Chelsea may have a medical professional injecting their players back to health. That will teach Mourinho to be subtle.
Cech has not played since the first leg and there is only an outside chance he will be fit for the match at Stamford Bridge tomorrow. Chelsea are in the midst of an injury crisis, though, so Carlo Ancelotti, the manager, did not rule him out entirely. Either way, Mourinho was not entirely wrong in predicting an impressive recovery, because Cech is at least expected back for the title run-in, beginning with the match against Blackburn on Sunday.
So who is ‘Dr Needles’ and what, specifically, was Mourinho implying by dropping the name?
Not all of his comments were the product of self-serving paranoia, either. He was right, sometimes — Rijkaard did try to approach the referee at the Nou Camp, according to the UEFA report — and because he was sharp-minded and successful, his excesses were often indulged as part of sport’s psychological war.
Driving a wedge: Is Mourinho making a serious allegation against Chelsea or casting vague and baseless aspersions?
This is different. If Mourinho knows Chelsea have a method of injecting players back to fitness that is beyond the capacity of their rivals he needs to clarify this, leading to a formal investigation.
Otherwise, he is casting vague and baseless aspersions to unsettle an opponent before a major game, which is a shameful tactic considering the seriousness of the issue and the professional implications.
The highly-respected professional caught in the middle of this is Dr Bryan English, a consultant orthopaedic physician, who worked with UK Athletics at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.
He joined Chelsea a year later and now heads a team comprising another full-time doctor, a part-time doctor, three physiotherapists and four masseurs. Mourinho would know this, though — after all, he appointed him.
Mourinho’s critics claim he often sees the worst in others because of what he knows of himself. He thinks Barcelona try to influence referees because he tries to influence referees. He thinks officials are intimidated by a big club like Manchester United because he used bullying tactics in Portugal with Porto.
If he is drawing attention to Chelsea’s treatment of Cech it would be because he was familiar with English’s regime at Stamford Bridge, where he introduced the controversial technique of blood-spinning to treat injuries. Blood-spinning is allowed by FIFA, although it is not without its critics and controversies.
It begins with an injection, removing a quantity of an injured player’s blood, which is then spun in a centrifuge to increase the concentration of growth hormones. Calcium and the enzyme thrombin are added before the resulting gel is injected back into the wound. The healing process is up to five times faster, but some still believe blood-spinning risks introducing artificial elements and should be banned.
It is no secret these days, though. Dr English referred to injections, as well as tablets, cold therapy, hydrotherapy and manipulation, as a way to treat injuries in an interview on Chelsea’s website, uploaded in April 2009.
Injections are nothing new in football anyway. Footballers from past generations received cortisone injections routinely to enable them to play through pain. John Gorman, assistant manager to Glenn Hoddle with England, once reduced a male audience to a cold sweat with the casual revelation that he had an injection directly into a testicle to enable him to play for Carlisle United in the Seventies.
What is different here is Mourinho’s implication that needles are a stock in trade at Chelsea and that this club makes players fit when they should be injured.
He knew exactly what he was doing when he said it and he was no doubt hoping somebody would pick up on it. So now, over to you, Jose. Is there something we should know, or was it all just another fatuous game?
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this game is on tonight!
should be a very good game to watch.
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Carlo Ancelotti backs Ross Turnbull to rise to special occasion
Turnbull coped well against West Ham on Saturday and is certain to retain his place against Inter Milan
Carlo Ancelotti joked yesterday that Florent Malouda will be made to play at left back as the punishment for making a disparaging remark about his manager’s portly physique, but Chelsea’s goalkeeping situation is no laughing matter. Petr Cech and Hilário have failed to recover from calf and groin injuries respectively, so Ross Turnbull will have the daunting task of acting as the last line of defence against Inter Milan on only his third start for the West London club.
Turnbull dealt well with the one save he had to make in the 3-1 victory over West Ham United in the Barclays Premier League on Saturday, but had little to do, which is unlikely to be the case when faced with the attacking talent of Samuel Eto’o, Diego Milito and Wesley Sneijder this evening. It is not the 25-year-old’s first Champions League appearance, although he did not distinguish himself in the 2-2 draw against Apoel Nicosia in December and is facing the biggest challenge of his career.
“I’m not a doctor, but until now Cech hasn’t trained, so it’s impossible that he might play tomorrow,” Ancelotti said. “There’s no chance of me taking a risk on Cech. Turnbull is a confident lad and we have confidence in him.
“Turnbull is a good goalkeeper who has played very well this season and improved every day. So, for me, it’s not a problem. Cech has more experience for sure, but Ross is young and has enthusiasm to play. He wants to play and, for him, this will be a great, great experience.”
José Mourinho, the Inter coach, revealed at the weekend that he intended to exploit Turnbull’s inexperience, but was in a more diplomatic mood yesterday. Mourinho pointed out that he gave a similarly inexperienced Hilário his Chelsea debut in a Champions League tie against Barcelona in October 2006, which they won 1-0.
“The story of playing with the third-choice goalkeeper is a non-story because the one thing I have good is my memory,” Mourinho said. “When I was Chelsea’s manager we played in the Champions League against Barcelona with our third-choice in goal. Cech and [Carlo] Cudicini were injured, and Hilário made his debut against Barcelona. We beat them at Stamford Bridge and drew in Camp Nou. This happens all over the world. So I don’t think it’s a big problem, especially if we don’t have a shot.”
Mourinho has problems of his own, with Mario Balotelli having been left in Milan after an alleged altercation with the coach in training yesterday, leaving Eto’o or Goran Pandev to partner Milito in attack.
“I don’t want to talk about him as he won’t be here,” Mourinho said. “I can explain why I called up the other 20 players. It’s more important to talk about the players who will be there tomorrow, not those that aren’t.”
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Chelsea have goalkeeping problems, the Italian media are gunning for Mourinho after he left striker Mario Balotelli out of his squad for the shock defeat by Catania on Friday night.
The two are believed to have had an argument after the previous game against Genoa when Balotelli claimed he had a fever, which prompted him to be sick at half-time.
He has now been left out of the squad for the clash with Chelsea and Mourinho was clearly on the defensive. "I don't want to talk about him," said Mourinho. "He won't be here. He won't be at the match.
"I can explain whey I called up the other 20 players. It's more important to talk about the players who will be there tomorrow, not those that are not."
And then there is the referee Wolfgang Stark - an official with history where Inter are concerned.
"We were talking about the referee, but we know that Inter lost against Arsenal, Valencia and Manchester United with this referee," said Mourinho.
"But I don't believe in bad luck. What's more important is to have a good performance."
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I'm the enemy and I won! Revenge for Jose Mourinho, shame for Didier Drogba as Inter Milan KO Chelsea
And you said you wouldn't celebrate! Jose Mourinho reacts to Inter Milan's winning goal on the touchline
JOSE MOURINHO got his 'perfect' revenge on Chelsea to send them crashing out of Europe last night.
The former Blues boss said Inter played the 'perfect game' to book a Champions League quarter-final spot.
And then Mourinho, sacked by Stamford Bridge owner Roman Abramovich in 2007 despite winning five trophies, warned he could come back to haunt Chelsea again - with an English rival.
He said: "Today my team played the perfect game and that is why we won.
"Sometimes in football you win because you're lucky, or because something happens during the game that makes the ball go to one side not to the other.
"Sometimes you win because you are the best team. Sometimes you win because you were the best team from the first to last minute.
"That team was my team, and my players. I'm very happy for them and for Inter's supporters, who have had this period of not getting to the quarter-finals for a few years.
"And I'm happy for myself because I worked so much to achieve this. This was a perfect game and perfect games do not happen very often."
Chelsea had Didier Drogba sent off in a match which saw them denied two penalty claims in the first half.
Mourinho did not celebrate the 78th-minute winner by Samuel Eto'o extravagantly but admitted he was more exuberant in the dressing room.
"But that's life. Yesterday I exchanged texts with John Terry and I told him that one of us would be sad today. That's life."
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Ancelotti I’m in trouble if we don’t win Title
WORRIED ... Carlo Ancelotti
CARLO ANCELOTTI admitted that Champions League failure has put him under pressure to win the Premier League title.
The Chelsea manager saw his team crash out of Europe to Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan last night - the first time they club has failed to reach the quarter-finals in four years. But Italian Ancelotti refused to blame the referee's failure to give his side a penalty after two big shouts and admitted he must now win a major trophy.
Chelsea are two points behind Manchester United in the Prem but have a game in hand. And they are in the FA Cup semi-finals where Aston Villa await.
Ancelotti though, conceded that last night's loss to former Chelsea boss Mourinho was a big blow. He said: "Now we have two important competitions. We're at the top of the list and want to win.
"We'll have more pressure on the next few games but we must be strong and have good control of our emotions.
"Maybe this defeat could be a very good motivation for the next few games. "My regret is we didn't play as well as we did in the first leg this evening. "But I've worked for a long time in this environment and I know exactly what expectations are.
"It's normal that a manager is going to come under pressure if he loses a few matches." Inter's Samuel Eto'o scored the winning goal at Stamford Bridge to complete a 3-1 victory on aggregate for the Serie A champions.
Blues striker Didier Drogba was also sent off for stamping on Thiago Motta after the Inter midfielder clearly fouled him in the area.
Ancelotti insisted he did not see the Drogba incident but refused to single out German referee Wolfgang Stark for not awarding Chelsea at least on spot-kick.
He said: "I always say that if the referee doesn't whistle... so I don't want to comment on his work, on the job of the referee. I didn't see the red card incident, so I don't know what happened in the box."
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chelsea really unlucky with injuries. essien out for the season was already bad enough, and with cole and now cech out. then the JT scandal doesnt help with team morale.
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Originally posted by Rooney9:
chelsea really unlucky with injuries. essien out for the season was already bad enough, and with cole and now cech out. then the JT scandal doesnt help with team morale.
come on, all teams struggle with injuries, it is soccer man..
MU, Vidic, Rio, OwenH, MOwen.
Pool, Torres.
Gunners, RVP.
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ancelotti neednt worry.
if he gets the sack he will be well compensated. there are enough jobs in the market for someone like him.
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Originally posted by dragg:
ancelotti neednt worry.
if he gets the sack he will be well compensated. there are enough jobs in the market for someone like him.
Pool??
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yup..pool shits alot