Despite their early season woes, Blues boss says they won't try to change their style
Jose Mourinho has insisted he will not abandon his plans to transform Chelsea’s playing style in a bid to produce an immediate end to their alarming early season dip.
Under the Spotlight: Jose Mourinho during a press conference before Chelsea’s loss to Basel. Pic/AFP.
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The Chelsea manager accepts he must face criticism after four games without a win, including successive defeats by Everton and Basel in the London club’s last two outings.
Portuguese boss Mourinho reacted to those losses by highlighting the inexperience of some members of his squad.u00a0But, speaking ahead of the visit of Fulham to Stamford Bridge for today’s west London derby, he maintained he’d been charged by club owner Roman Abramovich with changing the team’s approach.
And Mourinho was adamant he would not alter that agenda in an effort to provide an immediate upturnu00a0in results.
“When you want to build something different than the players are adapted to and comfortable with, it’s more difficult,” he told reporters at Chelsea’s training ground.u00a0“The easiest thing is for a manager to arrive in a club and not to change, to go in the same direction. Or to keep something and buy a couple of players better than what he had previously. Everything is going in the same direction.
“But if you want to do something different, there is a period where — I understand that, if the results are not good, people will question the direction you go — but it’s up to me to determine the direction we’re going.u00a0“If people expect us to play against Fulham — because we need to win, we need a victory — and play with a low block, nine behind the ball, waiting for Fulham to make a mistake, score a goal on the counter-attack, then I’m not going in that direction.”
Mourinho, now in his second spell in charge at Stamford Bridge, insisted the time to evaluate his return to Chelsea would be at the end of the campaign when the season’s work can be compared with the efforts of his immediateu00a0predecessors.
“I don’t like the way Chelsea were playing in the last couple of years. The club doesn’tu00a0like it.u00a0“We want to change. We have the players with the profile to change. We want to play a different style.u00a0“I don’t want to defend as a low block. I don’t want central defenders playing in midfield. I don’t want long balls to a lonely striker. I don’t want tou00a0do that.
“I agree, we must have better results. I agree that at this level, some clubs won’t wait three, four, five years to have a team, so we have to accelerate the process.u00a0“But I’m not going to change. We want this team to play a certain way, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
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