Former Chelsea CEO Kenyon was interviewed by the Telegraph and recalled that when Mourinho coached the Blues, his training method left a deep impression on Chelsea: "He changed the training method of English football. All training revolved arou...
Former Chelsea CEO Kenyon was interviewed by the Telegraph and recalled that when Mourinho coached the Blues, his training method left a deep impression on Chelsea: "He changed the training method of English football. All training revolved around football, and no one just ran around the training ground."
What Chelsea did not expect was Mourinho's influence off the court. He called himself "special one" at his first press conference after taking office. Kenyon said: "This special declaration surprised everyone, and recalling Chelsea's situation at that time, it immediately put us in the spotlight. Before Mourinho arrived, Chelsea was only famous locally in Chelsea. It was not disrespectful, but our fans were always traditional and they were great fans. But suddenly, it all changed and Mourinho attracted different fans from all over the world. From this perspective, his influence was unprecedented."
Kenyon insisted that Chelsea needed a coach who could turn talented players into championships, so he chose Mourinho. During the interview, Kenyon also talked about Mourinho's story of bypassing the Champions League ban and hiding in the laundry basket and mingling into the locker room for pre-match mobilization: "I never admitted before that any of us knew about this, but now I am willing to admit that he does ask for permission to do these things, but he will only do this when he knows we will agree!"
"But the laundry basket incident was not approved, and we only knew later that Mourinho took action without permission. Fortunately, he succeeded, and if he failed, the problem would be big. Abu knew that there were many people staring at us, so any behavior that damages the club's reputation would not be Tolerable. If something is very interesting and successful, it's okay because you succeed."
"This kind of thing happened many times, and my reactions are different. Sometimes I say 'You crossed the line, hell, you can't do it'. We are also preparing for the fact that things are revealed. I understand that Mourinho's doing mostly stems from his innate desire for victory and his competitive mentality, not to win the headlines, but to do so if he really wants to win games."
Mourinho won the Premier League title in his first two seasons of coaching Chelsea, in addition to winning the League Cup and reaching the Champions League semi-finals. However, when Abu decided to change the style of the team, the problem arose. Kenyon said: "When you never win the championship, you want to win the championship, and when you win the championship, you want to win beautiful things, which is what the fans and the club think, but Mourinho sticks to his philosophy. You can have many meetings and he will listen to you and sit down and discuss. But if you say 'I hope you can play differently', he will not accept it."
"That's why the problem starts to come up, the club starts to ask for more viewing, which is Abu's request, and this is what Abu asks, and It was not his negative comments about Mourinho, he just hoped that the club and the team would evolve. Abu went from being a man who knew nothing about football to someone who knew the sport very well, and this was his team, he wanted to see different styles, he never forced Mourinho to use a certain player, nor had he interfered in the choice of the lineup, he just wanted to see different styles of the game. This tension was gradually revealed at the beginning of the third season, and in the months since, both sides became increasingly stubborn because of each other's positions."
