As expected, she and Fearn will not be part of Mourinho’s dugout team for the game at City, but he played down the importance of which specific staff members are selected to operate from the bench.
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Mourinho’s treatment of Dr Carneiro and physio Jon Fearn, who also ran on to the pitch, has been unpopular with former players and pundits.
Chelsea’s Portuguese manager has been widely criticized for the way he has treated Carneiro and Fearn and while choosing not to apologize to Carneiro or Fearn – in public anyway – he didn’t rule out the duo returning to the bench in future.
“The bench is my responsibility, it is my decision”.
When the reporter instead directed his question at Atkins, Mourinho got up from his chair and walked to the door saying: “Now I go, have a good weekend”.
According to the Premier League Doctors’ Group, Carneiro and Fearn had no option but to enter the pitch and treat Hazard – and would have been in breach of their duty of care if they had failed to do so.
“It’s one game and we’re not getting carried away but when credit’s due we should get it”.
Anyone who reads this column regularly will know how much of a fan I am of the Chelsea manager but on this occasion even I have to admit he seems to have gone a little too far.
‘We managers want titles, players want titles, clubs want titles.
They did not shake hands after their first meeting in England in October 2013, when Mourinho celebrated extravagantly after Chelsea snatched a late victor at Stamford Bridge, and they have traded barbs through the media on a regular basis.
Mourinho said that when it came to the bench, in regards to the medical department, “only two go on the bench, and we are more than a dozen”.
Asked whether it was his the worst half of football he had seen from his side, Mourinho commented: “Defensively?”
“For other people the most important thing is not what other people think you do, it is what you do”. Sources had told ESPN FC earlier in the week that Carneiro has had her role with the club reduced in the wake of criticism by Mourinho.
Mourinho used fewer players in the Premier League last season than any other manager – the result, he said, of the team starting well and players, in effect, becoming undroppable – but the upshot was that they were shattered towards its end.
Mourinho, reluctant to spend the whole press conference speaking about the issue, explained the constant decisions he faces about who to include on the bench.
“And if the referee does not give you permission to go onto the pitch, you (still) go”.
“We have a big medical department and only two go on the bench”.
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By describing their actions as “impulsive and naive” and showing a lack of knowledge of the game, Mourinho has been accused by medical professionals of giving the impression that players’ welfare was not being prioritized.
