LONDON, July 11 (Reuters) - Manager Jose Mourinho says Chelsea's rivals will need to improve next season to have any chance of beating the English champions. In an interview with Chelsea's members' magazine published on Monday, the outspoken Portuguese coach also said winning a second title would be tougher. "It will be harder because other teams understand how strong we are and they have to improve. If they are the same, they know they have no chance." ADVERTISEMENT Chelsea, who won their first championship for 50 years, finished the season 12 points clear of nearest rivals Arsenal and 18 ahead of third-placed Manchester United. Asked if his side were still hungry for trophies, Mourinho said his plans for bringing in new blood were partly designed to counter complacency. "In reality you could say I don't need another midfielder. I have enough. If you don't need it from a football point of view, you need it from a mental point of view. "A player cannot think that because I was good I have my place and because I have my place I don't need to have the same commitment. http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news;_y...aA--?slug=reu-mourinho&prov=reuters&type=lgns This is trash talk even beyond anything Wenger or SAF have said. I don't remember SAF saying that when United won the league by like 15 points or whatever a few years back.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost Well, he can't refer to himself as "European Champion" every five minutes anymore, so I guess this is the newest ego-centric spin we'll be hearing....
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost It's real easy for him to talk when Roman is throwing around the GDP of some small countries for transfers....
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost So Mourinho is stating that Arsenal and Chelsea have to do better this season to topple Chelsea. Hmmm. Did he mention that the earth was round? How about day follows night? I'm actually thinking he was mis-quoted because he is usually more creative than this.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost The wisdom keeps coming. Evidently Jose later stated that the team that finished the year with the most points will win the league.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost Seriously. Guess what, Jose? The only thing harder than winning the league is retaining it. It's kinda nice playing 38 games as the neutral's favorite. It won't be so nice with a giant bullseye on your players' backs every game.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost One thing to add, I have to wonder if Jose Cuervo's latest piece of brilliant thought is a response to this.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost We need that 1 big signing and 1-2 good squad players... its the squaddies that have let us down, that and the lack of scoring... I think Mourinho will have sophomore slump.... the brand of football they play is top class, but its also rigid, I say the next time we play them we try to convince JM that he needs to get Abramabitch to invest in titanium shin guards for Duff and Robben, as minus their wingers they are beatable.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost Fvck yeah, Gaz. That boy gets it. A poor start and weak showings against bottom feeders are what did us in last year. I think he also understands that these "exceptional" seasons are going to be happening more often than not, and if we don't start stringing a few together, there won't be much chance to win the league.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost Gaz is right. When we're on song no one can stop us, no one. We just have to keep our concentration, keep up our form and have good backups for when our mainstays get tired. I want to see Jones and co. on the bench as well.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost I couldn't agree more with the one exception of getting Rio signed and focused. We had an excellent defence even with Carrol between the posts. We need to keep that a constant for the rest to fall in place.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost We also weren't in good health right from the go...... If you look at the squad that we sent out against Chavslki to start the season it was all squaddies...... That first month or so basically doomed us for the season..... Given good health and a fighting spirit which we are starting to show by our statements we can beat anyone....... Just ask Arsenal....
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost We need more luck with the injury situation this year. Also, it'll be fun to see how the Ruud/Rooney partnership gets a chance to shine after a proper pre-season program....
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost yeah, Shrek and Donkey have a shot at being one of our best strike pairings ever... they are certainly more talented than Yorke/Cole, Teddy/Ole however it just remains to be seen if they can find that telepathic link that those pairings seemed to have.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost The telepathic thing takes time together ... one thing they just haven't had. It will come !!!
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost No, he's just deflecting attention from the fact that we've spent less than you or Arsenal thus far this summer, which isn't a good thing. Also, he's, as usual, drawing all the attention to himself and away from the players. Standard Mourinho MO, really.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost Why is that? I mean, did people really expect Chelsea to continue with the gluttony of the past two summers? When you've got almost two full lineups' worth of depth, I'm not sure how much more needs to be spent in the first place. United and Arsenal had more positions that needed covering, so the two have bought accordingly. Chelsea will do the same if they feel players might not be up to standard this year as well. It would've been easier to run that American Express ad a few more times.
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost The only interest they've shown in this years xfer is to drive up prices for everyone else... (and of course convincing young kids that they are confused and don't know what they want).
Re: Mourinho: Get better or get lost its easy to win European titles when you manage a classy team like FC Porto ^_^