Jose Mourinho ramps up mind games as Tottenham boss tells Frank Lampard: I’ve been told your Chelsea team!
JOSE MOURINHO told Spygate victim Frank Lampard: I‘ve been told your team!
The Tottenham boss heads to former club Chelsea for their Prem showdown this lunchtime insisting he has already knows how the hosts will line up.
Blues boss Lampard went with three at the back when they won 2-0 at Spurs in December.
Mourinho, when asked about his opponents’ gameplan yesterday, said: “Tomorrow the same. I was told the same.”
Mourinho refused to divulge who had allegedly given him the team news.
When a reporter asked him how he had come by this information, he replied: “The same way you have a lot of news and you don’t tell the sources.”
And Mourinho gave an emphatic “No” after it was suggested Lampard may now change his tactics when he reads these comments this morning.
Mourinho said: “Will he go with the team as is? Of course. Of course.”
Leeds were fined £200,000 after one of manager Marcelo Bielsa’s staff was caught spying on Championship rivals Derby last year.
Will he go with the team as is? Of course. Of course.”
Mourinho on Lampard's starting XI
Whether this is espionage or pure Mourinho mind games remains to be seen.
We know he is a manager who would do anything to win.
While in charge of Chelsea in 2005 he defied a Uefa ban by smuggling himself into the dressing room in a laundry basket so he could give his pre-match teamtalk.
In two spells at Stamford Bridge he led the Blues to three League titles – including their first for 50 years – three League Cups and one FA Cup.
Yet he was booed by home fans when he returned there with former club Manchester United – to which he responded by sticking up three fingers – and he is expecting more stick today.
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He said: “I won three Premier Leagues. That’s nothing special.
“Am I disappointed? That’s football.
“One thing is the way I am treated in the stadium, another is the way I’m treated on the street. And on the street, every time I am approached by fans from all different clubs – not just the clubs where I’ve been working before, even clubs that I have no connection with – I am approached with care, respect, great feelings. And the Chelsea fans they find me in the street full of respect.
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“So one thing for me is my social life and what I call the street, another thing is the football stadium. And in the football stadium it is a completely different environment.
“That’s because inside a football stadium people are emotional, people just want to win and they look at the opposition as the sports enemy – I don’t want to say enemy as it is too strong in sport.
“The last time I went back was with Sky for Chelsea v Liverpool. It was very normal again.
“I don’t go there but I know if I want to go there I just need to pick up the phone and I will be treated the way I deserve and the way the club respects me and people like me who belong to their past.
“I don’t have a single problem with the club, not at all. I know if I want to go to Chelsea v Bayern Munich next week they will not make me sit with the Bayern fans. I am treated properly well by the club.”