Jose Mourinho believes his special connection with Chelsea supporters is testament to the passion and commitment he has shown towards the clubs he has managed in his career.
The 61-year-old has been linked with a third spell in the Stamford Bridge dugout following a lacklustre campaign from the Blues under Mauricio Pochettino, with the 11th-placed side having lost 10 times in the Premier League this season.
Disgruntled fans made their feelings clear during a 2-2 draw with Brentford at the start of the month, with supporters chanting the name of Mourinho.
But the self-proclaimed Special One is not reading too much into it and feels the fan reaction is simply a reflection of how much he fought for Chelsea during his two spells in west London – just as he has done at other clubs in his career.
Asked how it feels to hear Chelsea fans chanting his name, Mourinho told Fabrizio Romano: ‘The first feeling is I always say that the best thing football has is the fans.
‘Because the fans don’t make money with football – they spend money with football! Sometimes they spend money that the family needs and they make sacrifices because of the passion for football and especially for the passion for their clubs.
‘So normally they are fair. When the club’s fans don’t like the players, don’t like the coach, for some reason, it’s not because beautiful eyes, it’s not because handsome guy. They love it, or they don’t love it, for some reason.
‘In my case, independent of results – of course I had the luck always to have something to celebrate, something for the fans to have a good memory of me – but I think something that they see is when you are committed to them.
‘And I’m always committed to my club and fans. Doesn’t matter which country, doesn’t matter which club.
‘So I think they have a feeling that I give everything and because of my personality, in the end I’m always going to be more than a coach.
‘In some club structures, then you have to be the coach, the technical director, the communications director, the image that defends the club, the players.
‘And that is something that people realise, but at the same time it’s something that the coach doesn’t like because, myself as a coach, what I want to be is a coach!
‘I think the ideal scenario is when the club has a structure that allows the coach to be the coach, on the pitch, on the training ground, in the dressing room, on the touchline. But be the coach. I was the coach at Inter, at Real Madrid, in my first spell at Chelsea, at Porto.
‘In some other clubs I was not the coach, so that is very difficult for a coach. Very difficult for a coach.
‘But I think my relationship with every football club where I’ve been working, with the fanbase, I think the base of everything is that they see I arrive, I wear the shirt and I fight for them.’
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