Mourinho eyes success on two fronts

Jose Mourinho is confident that Chelsea can mount a strong challenge to win the Premier League and UEFA Champions League this season.

Mourinho was unable to secure a trophy in his first season back at Stamford Bridge last term, as Chelsea finished third in the Premier League and were knocked out of the Champions League at the semi-final stage by Atletico Madrid.

The former Real Madrid coach believes the London club can kick on in his second campaign back at the helm and thinks Chelsea are more than capable of winning what he expects will be another intense battle for the Premier League title.

“If I didn’t think that way I would go home and let somebody else take charge of the team,” he said.

“People can speak about other leagues but England is the only country where five or six teams can win the title. Football is about competitiveness every weekend and that only happens in the Premier League.

“When you have the two Manchester clubs, the three clubs from London – Tottenham, Arsenal and ourselves – plus Liverpool, that’s six top teams, where all of them can win the title. That’s why everybody loves the Premier League.

“At Chelsea, if we didn’t think we could win the league, or didn’t think we had the quality to do it, we wouldn’t be here working so hard.

“We respect our opponents and their ambitions, because they have the same ambitions as us, but we want to win the Premier League and we are ready for that.”

The Portuguese has also set his sights on becoming the first manager to win the Champions League with three different clubs.

He added: “Last year we reached the semi-finals and it was a transitional season.

“A team which has been a winning team for 10 seasons is changing step by step, we’ve bought new players and we are trying to build for the next decade. We had a very young team at the time but, even so, we reached the semi-finals and were playing to win the competition.

“This season we think we are going to be stronger, the younger players are more experienced, they are stable and better adapted to fighting for titles.

“You look around, to Spain, Germany and elsewhere in England, teams are getting stronger, spending big amounts of money and trying to sign the best possible players.

“We will go to the Champions League group stage with one objective: to qualify. When you reach the last 16 let’s see what happens.”