If, as former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said, a week is a long time in politics, four and a half months in football clearly represents an eternity. Chelsea’s troubled season took another turn for the worse on Saturday when Southampton inflicted a fourth loss in eight games of Jose Mourinho’s Premier League title defense.
My team, in this moment, the first negative thing that happens, the team collapses, the team mentally and psychologically is unbelievably down.
Jose Mourinho
Southampton seized on defensive frailties to win 3-1 at Stamford Bridge, leaving Chelsea 10 points behind fledgling leader Manchester City and only four points above the relegation zone. The result made Mourinho himself raise the prospect of Chelsea firing him — just as owner Roman Abramovich did in 2007 after three years of the Portuguese in charge.
If the club wants to sack me, they have to sack me because I’m not running away. If the club sacks me they sack the best manager that this club has had.
Jose Mourinho