Mourinho to gamble on all-out attack

His sternest test, and possibly the biggest tactical gamble of Jose Mourinho's coaching career. The Chelsea manager is considering abandoning his famous 4-5-1 system tonight against Barcelona and playing Didier Drogba and Hernan Crespo alongside each other in an attacking 4-4-2 formation to overturn their 2-1 deficit from the first leg.

The Portuguese coach's Chelsea players have been told to prepare for the possibility of playing with two strikers and four men, instead of five, in midfield ­ a major tactical departure for Mourinho ­ which will mean dropping Eidur Gudjohnsen to the bench. Mourinho has long favoured a lone target man ­ supplied by two wingers ­ but in order to surprise Barcelona could now play both Crespo and Drogba alongside each other. It is a risk for a manager who has a tried and tested system that has seen him defeated just twice in the Premiership in almost two seasons yet it also suggests that Mourinho sees no other option but to commit his team to attack tonight. It will mean that Claude Makelele will not be able to sit quite so deep to protect the Chelsea defence, and Frank Lampard, who is fit again, will have less support in midfield, but it is also a formation that promises to provide the goals that Chelsea need at the Nou Camp.

Mourinho knows that Barcelona's central defensive pairing of Carlos Puyol and Rafael Marquez are not comfortable with long balls played in from the wings and wants to exploit that with two traditional strikers. The Chelsea manager gave no hint as to the change in his thinking during a training session at the Nou Camp yesterday that he threw open to reporters ­ instead he preferred to concentrate on the kind of reception that awaits him tonight.

The Nou Camp will erupt in deafening derision when he walks out of the tunnel tonight and Mourinho said yesterday that is just the way he wants it to be. Chelsea go into battle for their Champions' Leaguelives against Barcelona but if their manager has his way then all the rancour and rivalry that exists between these two clubs will be directed at him.

That was the Mourinho master plan announced in the heart of the Nou Camp yesterday. "I will try to take some of the 'good' feelings that the crowd have upon myself," he said with a twinkle of irony and it is no exaggeration to say that those feelings are running extremely high in Catalonia. They have nicknamed their former translator "El Coco" in the newspapers, which is translated as "the bogeyman". In a city that was once his home, he has become a pariah.

As Mourinho called down upon himself the full fury of the Nou Camp, the Barcelona manager, Frank Rijkaard, asked that his supporters "applaud the Chelsea manager and his players on to the pitch". It was a move designed to deflate the tension that Mourinho has tried to create around the game and in the conflicting messages from these two managers was encapsulated the basic absurdity of their clubs' enmity: Mourinho begging to be hated, Rijkaard calling for his forgiveness.

Mourinho said: "The only thing I can do before the match is to go to the pitch before the players warm up, try to take a little bit of the 'good' feeling the crowd have for myself and make it easy for them [the players]. But it's up to them. Once the referee starts the game I can do nothing from that moment. I believe we have players with some experience and they can handle the situation. But it is something very personal, some players react in a better way than others. I cannot control the situation."

In fact, the Chelsea manager only really came to life when he was asked to contemplate the prospect of what awaited him in the Nou Camp. He was the first man through El Prat airport on Sunday, pursued by a herd of cameramen and was then spat at while he sat on the waiting coach. Yesterday he was abused as he left the team hotel for a stroll around the city. If Mourinho's aim was to protect his players from criticism, then he has done a fine job so far.

"When I am the first one to leave the airport, I know what I am doing," Mourinho said. "Because after that the players were received without any kind of pressure, photos or autographs. Everything was very easy for them. Leaving the hotel was the same. I left the hotel before them by two or three minutes, the 'nice' guys followed me and when the players left it was easy for them."

Unaware of Mourinho's tactical switch, nothing would persuade Rijkaard to rise to the bait he so famously took in the second leg of these two sides' Champions' League meeting last season. The Dutchman asked, in his peculiarly detached manner, that Barcelona fans "demonstrate we have respect for our opponents" ­ even opponents who are as loathed in this part of Spain as Mourinho and his Chelsea team.

"Yesterday I was watching television and I saw people insulting Mourinho at the airport," Rijkaard said. "This is not good. This is a good chance for us to show we respect Chelsea. We don't like it when one of our own players is abused so we must set an example to our opponents."

This is the moment that Rijkaard's team of brilliant individuals are required to show their steel at home ­ it is also the moment the Chelsea project risks taking its first backward step. They reached the semi-finals last year, elimination in the first knock-out round of the competition this time was not in the business plan: Peter Kenyon's touchline absorption with training at the Nou Camp last night showed how crucial the chief executive regards the match.

Mourinho's new status proclaimed by Sport's front page as "El Enemigo mas odiado" ­ public enemy No 1 in Barcelona ­ only served to make him more dismissive and defensive than he has proved over the last three months. It was a pity because it was in this very stadium a year earlier that he named the entire Barcelona team before sweeping off the stage to bemused applause from locals. This time it will be naming his own side that will be the most difficult choice.