Today our attention turns to the FA Cup and there can be no respite if our ambitions are to be achieved. We take on Bradford City in that competition today, the fourth round fixture sandwiched between both legs of our Capital One Cup semi-final against Liverpool. Next weekend, we host title rivals Manchester City in the league. There is no denying this is a busy period of the season as we continue to compete on four fronts, as Jose Mourinho analysed. ‘It’s the way you think,’ the manager explained. ‘I prefer congestion, with lots of matches and the risk of losing everything, and I can’t choose matches or competitions. I don’t know how to do it; I don’t know how to face my players and my fans and say this is not a competition we want to win. We always want to win. ‘Long cup runs don’t help at all in the title race. To help the title race the best thing is to lose against Bradford, to lose against Liverpool, to lose against Paris Saint-German and only play in the Premier League until the end of the season. ‘This is the perfect situation but not for us - not with our mentality, not with the way we think about our job and not with Chelsea’s DNA. We want to win as much as we can. ‘The other day a coach of a big team was knocked out in the cup and he said this was very good, we can focus on the other competitions. If I lose today against Bradford I don’t say that, I say it’s a disgrace.’ Mourinho explained yesterday he would pick a strong side this afternoon to counter the threat posed by a club that have caused plenty of cup upsets in recent years, noting too fellow League One outfit Sheffield United’s showing in their narrow midweek loss to Tottenham in the other Capital One Cup semi-final. With the fixtures coming thick and fast the manager cited our line-up in the previous round of the FA Cup as evidence of the strength of our squad. ‘If I’m not wrong we played Cech, Azpilicueta, Zouma, Cahill, Filipe Luis, Mikel, Ramires, Schurrle, Oscar, Remy and Drogba against Watford,’ he recalled. ‘They are good players. I don’t say that’s a second team. ‘I could have picked this team against Liverpool but I felt no reasons to do that. We played against Swansea and the game was over at half-time. It was an easy second half: we had 60 per cent of the ball and we rested with the ball. ‘The next day I came to training and everybody was ready to go, everybody was fresh. I made one [outfield] change against Liverpool - Mikel for Oscar - because I wanted to do it from a tactical point of view. ‘Today I will try to do a little rotation. John is on the bench. In other positions I will also try to give a rest here or there but keeping a good, strong, experienced team because I know the game will not be easy.’
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 12:27:14 +0000
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