“I know he’s having a torrid season and he looks like he’s going to get the sack, but I think he’s going to have the last laugh and they’re going to win the Champions League or the FA Cup and then he’ll be the “Special One” again”. Claudio Ranieri deserves all the credit for developing the belief in that team.
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Abramovich continues to hold regular conversations with the board and technical director Michael Emenalo over the best course of action to arrest the team’s alarming slump in form and weigh up how long they can afford to wait for improvement. I don’t see why they shouldn’t be.
It will be a real test for the interim manager, as the holiday period is extremely busy in England, and won’t leave him very much time in training to work on making changes. The first two or three fixtures, they were testing themselves and seeing how they could compete.
“Even when you are the best in the business because Jose Mourinho’s record speaks for itself, football can be very, very hard when you’ve got a momentum that goes against your team and the results are very hard to pick up”.
“Last season was fantastic, this season has been tough, but we’re looking to turn that around”.
Martinez will hope to hand Leicester just a second defeat of the season on Saturday but the Spaniard thinks the Foxes’ rise is a fillip for football. They are refreshing for modern football.
“Normally, in any competition, at the end of the season, more or less the expected sides are always there”.
Roberto Martínez has championed Leicester City as genuine contenders for the Premier League title and believes their “inspirational” rise under Claudio Ranieri has the support of every neutral in the country.
Following the most recent defeat to Leicester, Mourinho claimed his players had “betrayed” his gameplan and while he also reiterated that he had no fear of his job security, clearly the last straws were dropping for Roman Abramovich.
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“There are some great memories and I don’t think we should forget the manner in which we won the Premier League, leading from the start, which was an unbelievable achievement for everyone at the club”, he told Chelsea magazine.
