Mourinho: Winning league is beyond us

Jose Mourinho may have been holding a champagne flute to mark his birthday, but the Chelsea manager still doesn’t think he’ll be doing the same in May to celebrate the title.

When asked yesterday whether he thinks his squad can win this league, he claimed: “I don’t think so.

“We are improving a lot, the team, the players, so the prospective of champagne in the future is good. We are going in a good direction. But this? I don’t think so.”

Next term, however, he expects a very different story.

“I think, next season, we’re going to have a very strong team, starting from day one... more maturity, tactically stronger. I imagine we’ll be strong, but this season we are in the competitions. I’m not saying [we must] win the competitions, but we try and win the next match.”

With his side hosting West Ham, Mourinho made a surprising admission about another of tonight’s fixtures: he says he wants Manchester City to win at Tottenham in order to help Chelsea secure Champions League qualification.

“For us, it would be better for City to win,” Mourinho said. “Because, if they win and we win, we open up a gap to Tottenham. If we open it to [nine] points... you have a safe spot in the Champions League, and if you can have a safe spot by February and play the rest of the season without pressure we had at Chelsea until the last day of last season, when everything was a big doubt, that would be fantastic for us.”

When Mourinho makes such statements, of course, it’s hard to put much stock to place in them. It’s also hugely difficult to believe such a pathological winner does not think Chelsea can win the title this season.

Even the champagne out at Cobham yesterday was part of one of his games. Mourinho had been told on Sunday, when he turned 51, that Rafa Benitez had cake for the press on his birthday last season. The Portuguese went one better.

Mourinho also stated Eden Hazard can eventually reach the level of Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Asked about his previous work with West Ham’s Joe Cole, who will miss tonight’s game through injury, the Chelsea manager likened it to his coaching of the Belgian.

“Eden was much easier [to improve] than I thought. Much easier. What I did was normal. The way he reacted was not normal. It was fantastic.

“If he wants to be a great, great player and arrive where Cristiano and Messi arrives, he has the space to go — he’s 23, and Cristiano is 28 or 29, Messi 26 or 27... still young players, but four or five years older than Eden. So he has the space to go, space for evolution. I think there’s a great ambition for him.”

Allardyce, meanwhile, believes his struggling side can get a result at Stamford Bridge despite Mourinho’s superb 71-match unbeaten home record as Blues’ boss.

“We can’t go to Chelsea and lie down,” he said.

“We can’t go to Chelsea and think that we’re not going to get a result. When all said and done, West Brom should have beaten Chelsea this season. It can be achieved at any one time in any one game and we’ve got to believe that it can be achieved.”

West Ham could hand debuts to new signings as Antonio Nocerino and Marco Borriello after the Italy internationals penned loan deals at Upton Park, although Borriello is believed to be struggling for match fitness.