In contrast to their hosts, current champions Chelsea have struggled to find their rhythm, already losing eight times to leave themselves sat 14th in the table.
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Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho says he is slightly embarrassed by his enduring popularity with the club’s supporters.
“They don’t need that special vitamin to improve memories, because if not they would not sing the Special One to me, or to treat the players the way they do”.
Mourinho was unhappy to see Garry Monk lose his job as Swansea boss this week and criticised the culture of firing managers.
Earlier in the week Ranieri said he thinks the Blues are still more than capable of securing a top-four finish, and Mourinho agrees. “We knew we needed to win, everybody was confident and we played better”. But the way they played against Porto, they have to score goals. Their [Costa and Hazard] performance against Porto was very good, at this moment I’m not as anxious as I was.
Oscar believes Chelsea need more than just a victory in the Champions League to turn the tide this season, saying confidence will return when José Mourinho’s side win two or three games in the league.
Chelsea beat Porto 2-0 in the Champions League in midweek and are through to the knockout rounds of the European competition. “That’s the beauty, it’s fantastic”, said the Portuguese. “I have to say, the last defeat was something that was far away from what I believed could happen”.
“Before we lost the last three points against Bournemouth, I was convinced of a great December for us, to go for fourth”. If we play tomorrow in the FA Cup, we need to win matches, we need to win points, ‘ Mourinho added. It’s not possible for clubs to win three, fpur, five, 10 matches in a row now.
Mourinho replaced Ranieri at Stamford Bridge to start his first spell in 2004 and the Italian insisted he has moved on since leaving 11 years ago.
Leicester’s Claudio Ranieri and Jamie Vardy have won November’s Premier League Manager and Player of the Month awards respectively.
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“Everybody is miles away from him”. I even don’t know who to react to how nice they are. “I think Ranieri is showing he has that nice feeling for the club, but I also believe in what he says”. One thing is to be top of the league in September after a lovely start. That’s a completely different story. It would be something magnificent, something to impress the football world.
