Answers on a postcard...
MY CHELSEA MELONS!
Another slice of genius from Jose
Exclusive by Darren Lewis 19/06/2007
JOSE MOURINHO has delivered a bizarre Eric Cantona-style analysis of the young players he hopes will be Chelsea's future.
In a quip that will have critics scratching their heads, the Blues boss said: "Young players are a little bit like melons. Only when you open and taste the melon are you 100 per cent sure that the melon is good.
"Sometimes you have beautiful melons but they don't taste very good and some other melons are a bit ugly and when you open them, the taste is fantastic."
Cantona had fans baffled when he suggested that "when the seagulls follow the trawlers, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea." Now Mourinho has come up with something just as cryptic.
Striker Scott Sinclair, 18, and defender Michael Mancienne are two rising stars coming through the ranks at Stamford Bridge.
Mourinho appeared to suggest he is particularly impressed with Sinclair. He added: "One thing is youth football, one thing is professional football. The bridge is a difficult one to cross and they have to play with us and train with us for us to taste the melon. For example, Scott Sinclair, the way he played against Arsenal and Man United, we know the melon we have.
"Now it is a question of the best thing for his short-term future because his long-term future for me will be at Chelsea."
Mourinho, speaking to the club's official magazine, out today, confused supporters last season when he referred to Chelsea's transfer policy as "like having a blanket that is too small for the bed... You pull the blanket up to keep your chest warm and your feet stick out.
"I cannot buy a bigger blanket because the market is closed, but I am content because the blanket is cashmere. It is no ordinary blanket."
And he soon reverted to type in the magazine interview by mocking United and delivering a scathing end-of-term report on Chelsea's main rivals. The Portuguese gaffer insisted he took great joy in avenging his defeat by Sir Alex Ferguson in the title race by beating the Reds to the FA Cup.
He also revealed he was particularly happy to trash the Old Trafford party and send Fergie's men off for their summer holidays feeling depressed.
He said: "I have had the opposite in Porto - win the championship and lose the cup final, and I tell you, the happiness you have from being champion, you lose it because you lose the final.
"It is very important for the way you face the future. The players gave everything this season so that moment of happiness was a reward. And this final was a special final, an historic one, more than a normal FA Cup Final.
"It is also the end of a period when in three years, we won every competition in English football, so it was special.
"I was the first manager to lift the FA Cup at the new Wembley. John Terry was the first captain."
And then the inevitable...
Liverpool, of course, did not escape Mourinho's stick as he said: "Their fans can continue to chant 'no history' at us but we continue to make it. They have their history, we have our history.
"They have a history in Europe that Chelsea does not, and their history is magnificent.
"But I think for 17 years they don't win one championship and we won two in three years."
'Young players are a bit like melons . . sometimes beautiful melons don't taste good and ugly ones can taste fantastic'
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