Mourinho maintains Rooney pursuit
Chelsea have already seen two bids for the United striker rejected, but manager Mourinho is not yet prepared to cut his losses and will continue his pursuit until the September 2 deadline.
Mourinho was asked the motivation behind a probable new bid, despite United insisting Rooney is not for sale, and the Portuguese said David Moyes could always reject any fresh approach, just as Chelsea had from Barcelona for David Luiz.
If Mourinho is feeling mischievous, the new bid could come prior to next Monday’s Premier League trip to Old Trafford. “You try, because nobody forbids you to try,” said the self-proclaimed Special One, who was speaking ahead of tonight’s clash with Paul Lambert’s Aston Villa.
“When you think that you’d like to have one player and the market is open and the official bids are not forbidden, official bids are always accepted in an ethical way.
“Of course, the player’s owners can do exactly what we did in relation to David Luiz and Barcelona.”
Mourinho has expressed satisfaction with his squad, which contains three strikers in Fernando Torres, Romelu Lukaku and Demba Ba, but also has a fallback option if a move for Rooney is blocked again.
Mourinho, who has been linked with a move for Anzhi Makhachkala striker Samuel Eto’o, who played under him at Inter Milan, added: “We have plans B and C. Don’t ask me names because it’s difficult to speak about players from other clubs.”
Despite hoping to remain active in it, Mourinho sympathises with those managers calling for the transfer window to close before the Premier League season starts.
The subject again arose on Monday when Arsenal’s bid for Newcastle’s Yohan Cabaye on the day of the Magpies’ match at Manchester City provoked Alan Pardew’s ire.
“At a certain point I agree with what Alan was saying, that the transfer window goes too far, the transfer window goes to the third, fourth fixture of the season, which I also agree that is too much,” Mourinho said.
“But at the same time it gives everybody a chance to be in the market while we are winning or losing points.
“We have conditions to try to improve our team by bringing in one more player and we are going to try that until the end.”
Villa head to Chelsea today earlier than planned — owing to the Blues’ Uefa Super Cup commitments at the end of the month — buoyed by their 3-1 win at Arsenal. And Mourinho is wary of Villa following their success at the Emirates Stadium.
“It’s not such a big surprise because Aston Villa can do that to any one of us,” Mourinho said.
“They are a team with qualities to play away, to play the counter-attack game they played at the Emirates.
“They are a good team. It’s not such a big drama, they can beat any one of the contenders.”
For his part, Lambert has told his Villa side they owe it to themselves and their fans to atone for last season’s 8-0 humiliation by Chelsea.
Villa’s capitulation at Stamford Bridge was arguably the lowest point of a difficult campaign as they battled relegation and suffered three bruising defeats around the Christmas period.
But Saturday’s win at Arsenal means Lambert returns to Stamford Bridge in optimistic mood. The Scot said: “Confidence is really high after what happened at Arsenal and we’ll go down there and give it a right go.”
Lambert is not dwelling on their harrowing visit to Chelsea last year but knows they can go some way to making up for it this time around. “We owe it to ourselves as well to go down there and try to do better,” he said.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
