Current Chelsea coach, Frank Lampard has revealed Jose Mourinho’s tactics at Chelsea that led to the club’s title winning season.
Having proclaimed himself ‘the Special One’ at his Stamford Bridge unveiling in 2004, Mourinho went on to win the Premier League title and the League Cup in his first season in charge.
Backed by the billions of Roman Abramovich, the Portuguese coach challenged English football icons like Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.
Mourinho’s star midfielder Lampard has now lifted the lid on his methods in the new Paramount+ Premier League documentary ‘Fever Pitch’.
‘What we really started to do was change our mindset, we really started to believe we would win,’ Lampard said.
‘We had this manager with this real confidence, this bravado, who also wanted to sort of fight. He was a fighter in his media and the press.
‘He liked to create conflict, he liked to create them and us as a strategy – and it worked.’
Chelsea dominated the Premier League in 2004-05, losing just once all season and winning 29 of their 38 games as they finished 12 points clear of reigning champions Arsenal.
In the documentary, Mourinho recalls how the English media believed Chelsea would capitulate, allowing experienced title campaigners United and Arsenal to overtake them.
‘We were winning, winning, winning and it looked like nobody believed that Chelsea was going to win that title,’ he said.
‘How many times did we listen, how many times did we read: ‘Around Boxing Day they will collapse. Too many matches in that period, they will collapse. As soon as they feel the pressure they will collapse.’
‘Everything was “Man United will do it, Arsenal will do it, Chelsea will fail.”
‘I felt I needed to protect the guys, I needed to put myself in the spotlight, to be the one who shows strength of character, the one who shows no fear of Arsenal, of United, of history.
‘I tried to be genuine, a little bit naive compared with today, probably a bit more emotional compared to today, perhaps with a little bit more of that revenge feeling – “you say this, I kill you.” Everything was natural.
‘I believe that people only believed that the title was ours when we did it. For your own, like, ‘I did it and now you shut up.’
‘The problem is they only shut up for a couple of weeks but at least for a couple of weeks it was a special feeling.
‘These guys, they really wanted to make history. We went step-by-step and discovering the beauty and also the difficulties of the Premier League and good players without titles and Premier Leagues, you finish your career you are not a big player without winning titles.
‘I was right when I made that decision of Chelsea in 2004 because something special happened at that time.’
