Mourinho: Chelsea must keep delivering

JOSE MOURINHO believes that all the hard work of last season will count for nothing if Chelsea do not maintain their dominance in the Premiership.

Chelsea are currently 12 points clear in the Premiership following their 1-0 win over Wigan on Saturday, and although they have been knocked out of the Carling Cup by Charlton, the Blues will head into the final 16 of the Champions League next year as one of the favourites.

Mourinho, though, accepted with such high goals, comes a need to deliver time and again.

“I don’t say it is difficult because I feel pressure, as I don’t feel a lot of pressure, to be fair. But you know you have to get results,” the 43-year-old reflected.

“You know it’s not because of the success two years ago, five or 10 years ago - you have to be successful every year. Because of that, it is difficult.

“So when you are a manager of a club or a national team, you have the job that millions of people think they could have - so it’s not very easy in that way.”

He added: “What I like is that people recognise that I’m good at my job. Of course I cannot expect Manchester United, Arsenal or Liverpool fans to be in love with me, because I’m trying to take from them what they want.

“I try to fight for the respect of other people. The same way I respect them, because I respect other clubs, I hope they can respect my work.”

As well as winning over the sporting public, Mourinho firmly believes he also has a mutual “respect” from his fellow coaches.

“I believe so. I respect them,” he declared. “Sometimes you can have little problems and when you have them, you want to solve it, like for example what happened between me and Arsene Wenger.

“After one week, I want to solve it, he wants to solve it, and we did it. So I think it is important - you want to win, you have a job to do, but sometimes you have to respect people and deserve to get the respect from them.”

Meanwhile, Chelsea captain John Terry maintains there is no malicious element to Michael Essien’s game.

The Ghana international faces a UEFA charge of gross unsporting conduct following a challenge on Liverpool’s Dietmar Hamann.

Terry said: “He is a very quiet lad, but obviously people change when they go on the pitch and he is fighting for his Chelsea place. If he does not perform and win his tackles, then someone else will take his place.

“There have been a couple of challenges which everyone is talking about, but seeing him in training he certainly goes in to win the ball.”