José Mourinho has suggested some of his Chelsea players have been “afraid of the ball” during the club’s stuttering start to the season but the manager believes confidence is back after the 4-0 Champions League win at home to Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The European tonic was extremely timely in light of Chelsea’s return of four points from five Premier League matches and with Arsenal visiting Stamford Bridge on Saturday lunchtime.
Mourinho noted the tendency to look for dramatic explanations for a club’s poor form, and he did so in characteristically extravagant fashion, saying people wanted to believe John Terry and Diego Costa, for example, were setting up Wild West style duels in Cobham.
The reality, he said, was that the players had been caught in a downward spiral, where the results had affected confidence and fear had become the greatest enemy. The victory over Maccabi, Mourinho added, was particularly heartening because it had come after the psychological blow of Eden Hazard’s missed penalty in the fifth minute.
“In everything you do in life, you need confidence to be better,” Mourinho said. “In football, when you lose matches, you are affected. You can say you’re not but you are. Normally, when bad things in football happen, the first thing is to find a dramatic story.
“Somebody punched someone in the dressing room. The manager doesn’t want to speak with this guy. Diego Costa fought with John Terry and before they start the fight, they brought a translator for them to understand each other because Diego cannot speak English and John cannot speak Spanish.
“They organise it like the Wild West duels. We are going to fight at this time, bring a translator to help us. Or, Mourinho doesn’t want to give new contracts to Terry and [Branislav] Ivanovic. Mourinho instructs the scouts to find a new right-back urgently.
“The real direction is that you lose matches, and you are affected. You lose confidence, you don’t want the ball. You are afraid of the ball. You fear the worst. The ball goes to your box and you think the worst. You are in front of the opponents’ goalkeeper and you are afraid to shoot. You are affected.
“The good thing against Maccabi was that, after speaking about a strong start, we missed a penalty after five minutes but there was a fantastic reaction. We kept going, we kept playing. I don’t say the victory was what we need now to win 15 matches in a row. I’m saying it’s important for people to be a bit more relaxed, a bit more confident. To taste victory again is important.”
Mourinho said that Willian was out with the muscle injury he suffered against Maccabi while Pedro, Oscar and Radamel Falcao were doubts. Oscar is expected to be fit, while Terry, Ivanovic, Nemanja Matic and Costa should return to the line-up.
Mourinho’s feud with Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager, invariably provides the sideshow to these matches but Mourinho tried not to fan the flames.
“I don’t go in that direction,” he said. “Just the match. I want to isolate the match from every context. Doesn’t matter our fantastic record against Arsenal, doesn’t matter they beat us in the Community Shield – it’s a match I want to isolate from every possible context. It’s just Chelsea versus Arsenal and it’s a match we want to win.”