MOURINHO: STABILITY THE KEY

Jose Mourinho conducted his pre-Stoke press conference at Cobham earlier today, with the Portuguese hopeful his side can maintain the pressure on leaders Liverpool.

The media room at the club’s training ground was virtually full as Mourinho spoke about a number of topics, including the type of challenge we can expect from Mark Hughes’s side tomorrow and the improvements made by his side this season.

In terms of injury updates ahead of the game, the good news is that Ashley Cole is back in the first team squad for the first time in a month, but the manager will be without two other players.

‘John Mikel Obi is injured, Eto’o is injured,’ said the Portuguese. ‘Van Ginkel is on his way back but still playing with the Under-21s. Ashley Cole is back with the squad.’

Asked about a potential return date for Eto’o, Mourinho was unable to provide any guarantees.

‘For sure, he will be ready this season but I cannot say a match or a date when I’m expecting him to be back,’ he said.

The manager started the press conference by explaining how he felt his comments made in the wake of the defeat to Paris Saint-Germain weren’t overly critical of the side, and he thinks he was correct to question the manner in which the last two goals were conceded.

Fernando Torres started that game on the substitutes’ bench, with Andre Schurrle selected as the lone striker, but Mourinho insisted the Spaniard does figure in the club’s plans.

‘Yes, he has a future. He has a contract, he’s a good professional, he works hard for the team and brings positive things to the team. Obviously we want him to score more goals, obviously he wants to score more goals, it’s not just me that wants it, he wants it.

‘During his time at the club he’s had moments, some of them important moments, but he hasn’t had a lot of stability in his performances.

‘He’s had moments with important goals, despite having not scored a lot during his time at Chelsea. We have six league matches and one Champions League match that can be transformed into three. I trust that he can have these moments.’

Mourinho was asked about the future of another of our strikers, Romelu Lukaku, with the manager expressing his satisfaction with the manner in which the Belgian’s loan is developing.

‘He’s a Chelsea player but at the same time he’s an Everton player until the end of the season and we want to respect that,’ said the Portuguese.

‘Everton has been a good club for the loan; our player is there, he’s playing and he’s developing. That’s what you expect when you send a player on loan, it doesn’t happen with every club and every player. The loan is working well for the three – Lukaku, Everton and Chelsea.’

Tomorrow’s game will be the third meeting between the sides this season, with each having come out on top once.

Our Premier League defeat at the Britannia Stadium in December, when we conceded a last-minute goal, was particularly disappointing given our dominance in the first half of the game, and Mourinho is anticipating another tough test.

‘We lost there because we made a couple of mistakes, it’s one of the few matches where we have made defensive mistakes this season,’ he said. ‘We could have been winning at half-time easily and we arrived at half-time drawing.

‘They are a difficult opponent, we played them in the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge, we won 1-0 but it wasn’t an easy match, it was open until the end, so tomorrow will be difficult. They are fresh, they play one match a week, they have no pressure and they will fight to finish the season in a beautiful position, they want to finish seventh, not 11th.

‘We know how Stoke play, they are not the kind of team who change their approach to matches. They have their identity, they are getting good results, even away from home, so I don’t see a reason for them to have a radical change.’

Mourinho believes the fact we are still challenging for the title shows the improvements which have been made from the last couple of campaigns, and he explained how we will be even stronger next season.

‘We are there, two points behind Liverpool but what is important is the fact that two years ago Chelsea finished 25 points behind the leaders. Last season, when Man United were champions, Chelsea were 15 points behind.

‘We are in a process of rebuilding a new team with conditions not to finish 20 or 25 points behind the champions. We don’t want to compete in the Europa League, we want to play in the Champions League.

‘We’ll do that with stability, not by changing 12 to 14 players every season. What is stability? It’s to keep the best players you have and the structure you are trying to build. Part of the evolution is based on the stability and part is based on bringing in a couple of players in the transfer windows, like we did in the last one and like what we will try to do in the summer.’

– Chelsea TV’s full video of the conference is available via the channel’s online access.

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