Jose Mourinho pledges Chelsea history will not repeat itself with a September exit

Jose Mourinho had to digest the news that Thibaut Courtois will be out for three months

Jose Mourinho gestures from the sidelines (Getty Images)

The worst start to a season in Jose Mourinho’s career has failed to cause the tiniest dent to his self-belief. Even after learning that knee surgery will sideline Thibaut Courtois, “the best goalkeeper in the world” for up to three months, Chelsea’s manager will take his team to Everton today insisting that they trust him and are still in the title race; that he will not walk away and that the club will not sack him.

Owner Roman Abramovich’s appearance at the Cobham training ground on Friday had conspiracy theorists reliving September 2007, when some unexpectedly poor results, including failure to win the opening Champions League fixture at home to modest opposition (Maccabi Tel Aviv visit Stamford Bridge on Wednesday) led to Mourinho leaving.

He was having none of that this time, insisting circumstances were vastly different, not least because his itch to work in other countries has now disappeared.

“I don’t want to leave the club, in any circumstances,” he said. “And the club doesn’t want me to leave. I’m not going to walk away. The club is not going to sack me. Point. Point.”

And talking of points: “We have one problem. We are not getting the results we always expect to get. That’s our problem. Look, when I was here in 2007, I had two things in my mind. Go to Spain and go to Italy. I was in Spain and I was in Italy, I don’t want to go back. I want to stay here.”

If Mourinho is now older and wiser, he implied that the owner was too: “Mr Abramovich in 2007 in his football life, he knows only two managers, [Claudio] Ranieri and myself. In this moment, he knows how many – 10? – he knows a lot of them. So there are differences. I repeat – I stay until Mr Abramovich wants. I had a contract that expires in two years’ time. And he gave me a contract that expires in four years’ time.”

Chelsea’s manager spent the international break working with the seven senior players not called up by their countries and studying tapes of the next two opponents, plus the four games so far that have yielded only four points and left the champions eight points behind leaders Manchester City.

Mourinho was sacked just days after a shock 1-1 draw with Rosenborg in September 2007 (Getty Images)

“I never had four matches, four points, never,” he said. “I’m not happy and I’m happy that I’m not happy. The moment I’m happy losing matches, then I’ve changed a lot.

“I work harder than ever, I’m optimistic, I trust the players. I repeat, the players trust me. So it’s not such a hard situation because you feel that better results will arrive. We are going to leave this situation for sure.”

Goodison, where Chelsea won 6-3 a year ago, would be a useful place to start. Mourinho, who can expect even more abuse than the usual Merseyside tirade after the unsuccessful and very public pursuit of Everton’s centre-half John Stones this summer, will have John Terry free from suspension but must do without Courtois, who had surgery after injuring a knee in training on Wednesday.

His replacement will be Asmir Begovic, who played well despite the 3-0 defeat at Manchester City last month, with inexperienced young Englishman Jamal Blackman on the bench; in his only senior game for any club Blackman was beaten 16 times when on loan at Middlesbrough for their defeat on penalties by Liverpool in last season’s Capital One Cup.

“The third goalkeeper is always a complicated situation, because you can be a third goalkeeper and not sit on the bench once all season and you can be a third goalkeeper and play a big match,” Mourinho said. “He doesn’t have [experience] but he has potential.”

The Portuguese allowed himself a sarcastic dart at Fifa, over their investigation into a complaint by Fiorentina that they had a contractual agreement to sign Chelsea’s winger Mohamed Salah before he joined their Serie A rivals Roma on a season’s loan.

“I’m happy that Fifa has time for other things in the middle of such a great weather around them,” he said of the world governing body’s current turmoil.