The Chelsea boss claims this season shouldn’t be seen as a failure should it end without a trophy
Chelsea saw their last major hope for a trophy ended by Atletico Madrid on Wednesday leaving the Premier League as their only option.
If the Blues are to claim a piece of silverware this season, they will have to win their two remaining games and both Liverpool and Manchester City will have to drop points.
Mourinho went on to recall his records as a manager to defend himself.
“I’m going to tell you something — a bit of the history of my career,” Mourinho said.
“My career reached, against Inter, the maximum you can reach when you win everything. In 2010, I won everything: Scudetto, Coppa Italia, the Champions League.
“After that, this is the history of my career. In the first season [after 2010], I won the [Spanish] cup against the best team in the world [Barcelona] and finished second in the league after the best team in the world, and I lost the Champions League semifinal against the best team in the world.
“The next season, I was champion against the best team in the world, the champions of the records — 100 points, 126 goals, the record team — and we won that league.
“We lost the Champions League semifinal on penalties [against Bayern Munich] in a day when two of the best penalty takers in football missed, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo. And that was a ‘bad’ season.
“In the third season, we won every match against the best team in the world — in the league, the Super Cup, the cup, at the Bernabeu, at Barcelona — we won everything against them. We won the Super Cup. We lost the league, finished second. And we lost the Champions League semifinal by one goal [against Borussia Dortmund].
“And the fourth season, which is this one, and probably the first where I don’t win a single trophy — unless we win the league — I go to the Champions League semifinal and fight for the title until the last minute of the season. So these are the four bad seasons of my career.
“It went wrong by going year after year like nobody else did. You arrive at a level where finishing second is not good, losing a semifinal is not good. So I’m proud of that. Guilty of that.”
By Phil Wellbrook
