Chelsea FC favourites to be Mourinho’s next club as he plans return to England

Visit Save For Later by Crunch Sports Staff

• Chelsea are favourites to be Jose Mourinho’s next club after the Real Madrid coach reiterated his desire to one day return to the Premier League and refused to rule out a return to Stamford Bridge. Mourinho had been linked with a return to Chelsea earlier this summer, with owner Roman Abramovich believed to have been considering making a move to bring the Special One back to the club for a second spell. Instead, Abramovich appointed Roberto Di Matteo as the club’s manager, and Mourinho pledged his future to Los Blancos by extending his contract with the Spanish giants through to June 2016. The 49-year-old, who first took charge of Chelsea in 2004 after winning the Champions League with Porto, is widely seen as a candidate to succeed either Sir Alex Ferguson or Roberto Mancini at Manchester United or Manchester City respectively at some point in the next few years. But the Portuguese has refused to rule out a return to west London, telling BBC Radio 5 Live: “I will go where people really want me and, when that moment arrives, they show me they really want me. “But I have to repeat always this: I am at Real Madrid. I like very much to be [there]. “I want one day to be back in English football, yes. I always said that.” Bookmakers Stan James make Chelsea their 2/1 favourites to be Mourinho’s next job if and when he leaves the Bernabeu, ahead of Man Utd (3/1), Man City (6/1) and Tottenham (10/1). And Mourinho, who has also had success at Inter Milan, has revealed that his secret when he takes charge of a club is to immediately become one of their fans. “When I go to a club, I wear the shirt, I feel the shirt like it’s my first one or my last one,” he said. “I feel the fans as part of myself. I create eternal links with fans. “I go to play against Chelsea and I feel [it], I go to Italy and I feel [it]. “I work for the clubs, I work for the people that trust me, and of course the owners and the directors, but the clubs are the fans. “For me, it’s one of my qualities. I become immediately one of them and I feel that I am one of them with a privileged position to fight for the club and to try to bring to all of them happiness.”