In response to growing press speculation surrounding his future at Chelsea, Jose Mourinho made an appearance on the club’s TV channel last night to reassure fans and to tell them to ignore what the press is reporting.
“We all love Chelsea. The fans love Chelsea for a long, long time. I love Chelsea just for two-and-a-half years but I love Chelsea,” he said.
“I want to give my best to Chelsea every day and I want to win always the next game and the next game is against Wigan. We have to be together to win that game.
“We have to forget the stories, we have to forget what the press is saying and we have to concentrate on our Chelsea because Chelsea belongs to all of us.”
Mourinho’s statement did little to extinguish the speculation.
The Independent and the Guardian continue to report that all is not well at Stamford Bridge. The Sun even claims that Real Madrid are lining up a move for Mourinho, with Frank Lampard also heading to the Bernabéu for £8.5m.
On the pitch things look to be improving. Arjen Robben and Carlo Cudicini are fit again while Petr Cech is in line for a return against Liverpool next weekend.
Ashley Cole is suspended, but both Didier Drogba and Ricardo Carvalho return after serving one-game bans for picking up five yellow cards.
Unfortunately John Terry is expected to be out for a few more weeks.
Wigan are without their captain Arjan de Zeeuw, Andreas Granqvist, Antonio Valencia, Henri Camara and Paul Scharner.
Chelsea are unbeaten in 11 Premiership matches and in 55 at the Bridge, but are on their longest ever winless League run under Mourinho – albeit just three games.
The Blues defend a 100% Premiership record against Wigan with three wins out of three, but each of those have only been single goal victories.
Arjen Robben’s injury-time strike sealed a 3-2 victory at the JJB Stadium on the Saturday before Christmas.
