Gary Neville meets Jose Mourinho: 'I would sign new six-year contract here tomorrow'

Up in the TV gantry 90 minutes before kick-off that day, I saw signs that Mourinho and Chelsea were on a mission. In his office at the club's Cobham training ground this week I tested that theory on him. As he answered I saw the determination of that amazing day return to his features. Chelsea had no intention, he says, of playing "the clown" at somebody else's party.

"I felt during part of last season that the country wanted Liverpool to be champion," he starts out. "The media, the press: a lot was to put Liverpool there. Nobody was saying they were in a privileged situation because they didn't play Champions League. Nobody was speaking about a lot, a lot of decisions that helped them win important and crucial points. And I felt that day was a day that was ready for their celebration.

"I used the word with my players. I said: 'We are going to be the clowns, they want us to be the clowns in the circus. The circus is here. Liverpool are to be champions?'" I interject: "You weren't having that, were you?"

He fixes with me with a look: "No." There is more to it, though. By refusing to move the game to the previous day, because Chelsea had a Champions League semi-final to prepare for, did Liverpool goad Mourinho's men into a performance with extra vigour, and so contribute to their own downfall?

Process

"I think if we play the day before we don't play with the same spirit we did on the Sunday." Wow. Here was the killer line. The casual Sunday outfit - tracksuit and hoodie - the unshaven face. Was it all part of Mourinho's plan to lull Liverpool and then shut them down? I think my instincts were correct.

I am here, more generally, to find out about Mourinho's management style, how long he might stay at Chelsea, whether young English players will finally be promoted to the starting XI and how he compares this season's team with the one he inherited last year. Pleasingly, he speaks of a "moral commitment" to nurture young English talent.

On the longevity issue, I wonder what his response would be if Chelsea offered him a six-year contract extension. "I sign tomorrow. That's what I want," he says. "I want to stay in Chelsea and English football because I think I won the right. My wife says many times I won the right to stop when I want. She says I won enough, I did enough, I created a good situation for the family. She says I won the right to do what I want. Unfortunately, Chelsea's not my club. I depend on the club and I depend on the results."

We spend an hour and 40 minutes discussing all this and more. I start by reminding him that he first came seriously to my attention sliding down our touchline - the Old Trafford touchline - when his Porto side knocked us (Manchester United) out of the Champions League in 2004. I played in that game, 10 years ago, and it helped Mourinho to a Champions League title and the Chelsea job, though he would have made it to the top regardless.

"When I remember that (knee slide), the good thing for me is that last year I did the same," he says. "So it was not something from a young coach, it was not something from somebody who feels that moment was my moment to change my career. Last year I did exactly the same against Paris St-Germain and hopefully this year I will do another one. This is part of the way I sometimes don't control the emotion, the happiness."

In his own career he says he has learned to "respect the guy who deserves to win," and cites the example of Crystal Palace, who inflicted a painful league defeat on Chelsea at Selhurst Park in March: "I wanted to kill my guys. But they (Palace) were amazing. And they needed those points to survive. So, in the middle of my unhappiness, I was mature enough to say, 'Hey, these guys were brilliant, because they did very well. I told the (Palace) guys, 'Congratulations' one by one."

Since then Chelsea have risen a notch with the additions of Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas, among others. So would he trust the team now away at Crystal Palace? He says: "Yeah, yeah. Last year, I was feeling that we could (win the league) but we were not ready to cope with that pressure." Why?

"Because we had certain limitations in the team in terms of tactical qualities, technical qualities, and we were aware of that. My style of leadership is not a style. I try to have a leadership that is adapted to the reality. And last year I was feeling that they were not ready for what I call a pressure leadership - or confrontational leadership. The team as a team was mentally - and even tactically - unstable.

"We couldn't cope with certain moments of the game. My feeling is that obviously this season we're going to lose matches, but I don't think we are going to lose matches because we couldn't cope with a certain moment, or a specific (part) of the game."

"When we were in a good run, I was feeling that the end of the run was coming. My team, last year, with a lot of guys, was not ready for that. So my team was unstable.

"This season we improve footballistically, with Diego and Fabregas, no doubt. They represent the kind of player we need, the kind of second midfield player, the quality of striker. We were lucky to have in the market available for us exactly the style of player we need.

"But what people maybe don't realise, is that the maturity of our team, the personality of our team changed a lot."

I suggest to him that the Premier League cannot be won without strength, power, durability. I'm trying to find out where he sees the balance between artistry and calculation. He shows himself to be a pragmatist, free of rigid philosophies or pre-arranged ideas.

"Obviously talent is so important," he says. "And how many points are you going to win based on talent? A lot. But how many points do you lose based on the qualities you are speaking about (character, strength)? So the balance is between the talent you need and these mental qualities, team qualities."

With this improved and tougher Chelsea side five points clear of Manchester City (and with a trip to Manchester United looming, next Sunday), Mourinho is not rushing to proclaim his team as champions.

"Five points is nothing," he says. "But I think Man City have everything. I think they have lots of talent and they have lots of physicality. They have more options than everyone else. When you speak about the replica - the second right-back - they have replicas for every position. They can cope with injuries, they can cope with suspensions.

"You tell me. If we keep this team, and they keep that team: in five years' time, who is going to be better? I say immediately - us, because in five years I'm going to have Hazard, Oscar, Willian, Azpilicueta, Zouma, in the best moment of their careers, and the fantastic players I have now, at 28, 29. A fantastic team with lots of solutions."

In his second spell at Chelsea, Mourinho is clearly settled, relaxed, and on good terms with his employers. He is a man in control of his team and his players. An example: Eden Hazard, who brings an almost father-son glow to Mourinho's eyes. He is the player I want to talk most about in this interview, because I have noticed Mourinho challenging him, publicly, to fulfil his talent. He gives me a fascinating insight.

He starts out: "I don't know if you agree with me, but the profile of the 'man player' you found in football 15 years ago is different to the majority of the players you found at the end of your career. They are different kids. I think Eden is out of context at this moment. Why? Because he's a fantastic kid. He is humble, very humble. Very nice. Very polite. Selfish - zero. Egocentric - zero. He is fantastic.

"I had a conversation with his father. His father told me something that I loved. I don't think it's a problem to tell you. He said, 'I have a wonderful son. He is a wonderful father. He is a wonderful husband. I want him to change, because I want him to be a wonderful player. But I don't want him to change a lot. I don't want him to become - and he used the name of two or three players. I just want him to be the same husband, the same father, the same son, with a little bit more tenacity, mental aggression, ambition, personal ego. A little bit more. And you are the guy to give it to him'."

Is Hazard responding to that message? "Yes, yes, yes. He's never afraid to play and take responsibility. But it's not about that. It's about him saying, 'Today, I have to be decisive'. What he says in that press interview, when he says, ' I'm not one of the five top players in the world' - he can be, but he cannot be in a match where he doesn't do something in the 90 minutes that makes him decisive."

So after a series of moves from Portugal to England to Italy, Spain and back to England, I ask whether he is at Chelsea for the long haul.

"I keep saying the same. In every club I was working and thinking about that club, but I always have my next movement. This is the first time where I don't have my next movement.

"I want to stay. I want to stay till the moment Chelsea tells me it's over, because the results are not good, or they want to go in another direction, or they don't agree with my style of management for any reason. This period at Chelsea is going to hang by their decision, not mine."

This summer's changes brought £125m into the club for players that were surplus to requirements and an influx of players Mourinho obviously feels are his picks.

He explains: "With these assets or players who are not fundamental for me, it's where you - meaning, my club - have to do the best possible job for me. Is this easy to say when you are talking about very good players? It's not easy.

Vision

For example, (Juan) Mata to Man Utd. We are losing a very good player to a direct opponent. Would this have happened 10 years ago? Maybe not. But in the modern football and the new economic reality (for Chelsea), if Man Utd pays you an important amount of money he has to go. It is my club's vision."

Finally I ask him to compare this year's Chelsea side with the first of his title-winning teams: "I think the team of 2005 had one plus in relation to this team, which was killer instinct. Every time we could kill matches, we killed matches. I don't remember matches where we had the opponent and didn't kill. It was a team that never gave a chance to the opponent to survive.

"This team is not there. We are more artistic, I believe. We have better control of the game by having the ball. This team has more (potential) to be admired by good results but also for a certain style of play.

"In that team I had guys like Makelele. He knew everything about that (toughness). These guys are still in that learning process. I think we are going in a very good direction. People like (Arjen) Robben, (Damien) Duff, even Joe (Cole) in his two great seasons with me were people with appetite to kill matches, to finish.

"You don't see Duff dribbling without a shot. You don't see Robben attack the space without getting a penalty or shooting. We have some guys still in the line between the artistic side and the objective side. We need to kill more matches."

So will they, and be champions this season? "Sometimes I think its part of the players' DNA. Things that you cannot give to the players. But as a coach I always feel I have the quality to interfere. I can help, I can change. So I try." (© Daily Telegraph, London)