Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has been forced into a major damage limitation exercise after being caught by French press dismissing the quality of his current strikers. The Chelsea boss’ remarks about Samuel Eto’o, Fernando Torres and Demba Ba were caught by French TV company Canal+ during a sponsorship launch last week. Mourinho believed he was privately chatting with senior representatives of the company about his options up front, but his comments have now emerged.
“I have a team but no striker,” Mourinho said, “it is not possible for us to win the Premier League. Yes, we have Samuel Eto’o, but he is 32, maybe even 35, I don’t know.”
Mourinho did speak directly to Canal+, where he dismissed the possibility of a swap deal involving Eden Harzard for PSG striker Edinson Cavani. He also suggested a move for Zlatan Ibrahimovic was ‘mission impossible’. He then admitted he was approached by the Paris club for the vacant manager job when he left Real Madrid.
Mourinho had spoken about Monaco striker Radamel Falcao, suggesting he needed to leave the club. However Chelsea sources insist that this was another ‘lighthearted’ off-the-record quote, rather than for public consumption,
Mourinho said, “I don’t have Falcao but Falcao doesn’t have a club, I mean, who wants to play in front of 3,000 supporters? Monaco is the sort of club I go to at the end of my career.”
But here it is the comments about his current strikers that Mourinho is fuming about. The Portuguese has made it no secret that he lacks class in front of goal, with the trio of Ba, Torres and Eto’o only managing just 11 Premier League goals between them this campaign. He insisted that deals in the summer would make up for the lack of deals in the recent January transfer window.
By Ben Kelly
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