Jose Mourinho: I am not bothered by Jorge Valdano's 'ego' jibe

Chelsea boss responds to comment made by his former general manager at Real

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho looks on from the touchline (Getty Images)

Jose Mourinho has hit back at Jorge Valdano, his former general manager at Real Madrid, who had accused the current Chelsea manager of being the epitome of the triumph of “ego over intelligence”.

In an interview earlier this week to promote his new book, Valdano claimed Mourinho had “never said a single thing about football worth remembering”. He also said Mourinho had failed to deliver the Champions League at Real Madrid, despite a formidable squad, and described the Portuguese coach as the Salieri to Pep Guardiola’s Mozart.

Asked why Valdano, ousted by Madrid during Mourinho’s time there, had made such a personal attack on him, the Chelsea manager replied: “Because he needs to make money and sell books.” He added, with considerable sarcasm: “I have no problems with that. I accept it. It’s fair. No, I wasn’t bothered.”

Mourinho said Chelsea could have Diego Costa available for Saturday’s game against Swansea City, the Spain striker having returned early from the international break for treatment on a thigh injury. With new signing Loïc Rémy also in contention, he said the three forwards at his disposal this season gave the club more than the departed Demba Ba, Fernando Torres and Samuel Eto’o had done last season.

Mourinho said: “Nando [Torres] gave an important contribution to this club. We like him a lot. But Rémy was one of the players we had in our objectives to sign – now we have a guy like Didier [Drogba] who is a box expert, a kind of striker that the box is his natural habitat. The best of the three in the air.

“Rémy is very fast, he attacks spaces, he can play even from the sides like he does for France. Diego is very well suited to the style of play we want to implement. We had a good group of strikers last season, but we changed three for three and we believe these three give us more.”