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| Mourinho looks despondent as Chelsea lose 1-0 to Arsenal in the Community Shield at Wembley |
THE reason behind the tawdry and damaging stories that have run all week finally became clear when, in a rare moment of self-deprecation, Jose Mourinho admitted he had got it wrong.
No, not with regard to Dr Eva Carneiro. The Portuguese is far too stubborn a mule to back down in so direct a confrontation.
"I don't answer," he snapped when asked in a separate briefing with newspaper journalists away from the cameras who ultimately is in charge of sending medical staff onto the pitch.
When asked if he had asked his players to think twice about calling for treatment in future, Mourinho retorted: "That's my problem!"
However, the one error of judgment Mourinho was finally prepared to admit seems to have occurred in his preparation of Chelsea's entire pre-season.
Perhaps eased into refreshing openness by the relief of having the conversation finally moved away from medical matters, Mourinho admitted his players were still way, way short of full competitive fitness.
In the build-up to last season he was a relaxed sprite of a figure, playing mischievous pranks on his staff while on tour and preparing for a season he was confident would eventually see Chelsea crowned as champions.
This summer, though, he has grossly miscalculated and the strain is showing.
Worried by a dip in performance towards the end of the last campaign, he has tried to ease into things too gently and his worst fears that he had miscalculated were confirmed when the Community Shield defeat against Arsenal was exacerbated by two Premier League points dropped in the opening home game against Swansea.
Dr Carneiro and Jon Fearn were victims of the usual diversionary bluster as the stress of starting the new campaign added to other anxieties Mourinho already has and caused him to explode.
But once the pantomime of the Chelsea manager at one point threatening to leave the press conference had passed, Mourinho's real concerns this week finally emerged.
"We made a decision that we thought was the right decision," he said. "We chose to give the players a proper holiday and to give the players one month's holiday.
"I thought we could win against Swansea, when we decided on that kind of pre-season, but the circumstances of the match took it in another direction which wasn't easy for us to win.
"Last year we started early, and played in a lot of matches before the start of the season, and we had a fantastic start. We paid for that quick start and that fast pre-season in the end of the season.
"We were tired. The team had problems, the team was tired.
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| Chelsea ended their pre-season campaign with a 1-0 defeat at home to Fiorentina |
"This season we tried to go in another direction with a slower start, a short pre-season, only three matches before the Community Shield and only four matches before the beginning of the Premier League season.
"Clearly we know what we are doing but clearly some bodies didn't react as well as w expected."
Manchester City, on the other hand, came out of the traps flying against West Brom on Monday and Mourinho fears it could be as much as a month before Chelsea catch up.
"This week was a fantastic week for us because it was one more week of pre-season: no matches in between, no travelling, nothing, just training from Monday to Sunday," he said.
"The next week will be the same, the next week will be the same and the next week will be the same. So we also know that the first four fixtures of the season - Swansea, Palace, West Bromwich and Man City - are four matches with one week before.
"So in the end of this fourth match in the Premier League, we are going to be in a good situation."
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