Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho insists he wants to remain in charge of the club for more than a decade after revealing he took a pay cut to return to Stamford Bridge last summer.
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Mourinho is still reported to be one of the highest earning managers in the game, but stressed his desire to make an emotional return to Chelsea, and not a motivation to increase his bank balance, was the driving force behind his move from Real Madrid.
“If I was here for me, I wouldn’t be here,” Mourinho told reporters ahead of the crunch game against Arsenal on Monday. “If I was here for financial reasons, I wouldn’t be here getting a lot less money than I had at Real Madrid, where I had three more years on my contract.
“I had other clubs in other countries where it would be easier to go and find an ‘easy’ job immediately. I had Real Madrid. I left them because I wanted to, not because they wanted me to.
“I didn’t come here because the job was easy, or because I had a team ready to attack the title, or because I was coming here for the best contract of my life. It’s the worst of my last six years.
“I’m here because I love the club, I love the project. It’s a different project. I also love the country in terms of football, but the main reason is I was explained what the club wanted of me and I liked that.”
Chelsea’s indifferent form of late has not added to Mourinho’s festive cheer yet the Portuguese manager chose this moment to insist he could not be happier at the club, as he is eyes the kind of long-term dynasty he has not enjoyed at any of his previous postings.
“I would like [to stay for] 12 years,” he stated. “I’m 51 next month. I’d say 12 years, and then two to go to a World Cup with a national team. I would prefer the Portuguese national team. England second [choice], yes.
“How long can I stay? Realistically, I have four years contract remaining. Realistically, I hope at the end of those four years we sit, analyse the situation and that will be the point where we are both — club and me — happy to carry on or happy to separate.
“The best way to [run a club] is to do it with stability. For the players, if you want to help them grow up, you do that much better with stability: in ideas, philosophy, model of play, style of leadership.
“This all comes from stability at the highest level: with the owners and board and, after that, the manager. The second line of the hierarchy. That stability is very important. You look, for example, to Manchester United and everybody feels David [Moyes] will have his time to do his work in a calm way. I think that’s fantastic.”
Mourinho went on to stress he has “no regrets” about the high profile fall-outs with Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger ahead of their latest clash, but he went some way to retracting a previous jibe suggesting the Frenchman was ‘lucky’ to still be in charge of the Gunners after an eight-year trophy drought.
“Maybe Arsene was loyal to the club in many periods where he could leave to go to other teams, and for sure he had these moments in his career, but he always decided to stay,” added Mourinho.
“When a manager is loyal to his club, there is a natural reason for the club to be loyal with him. They deserve each other.”