Mourinho can be a comedian

Jose Mourinho has used Chelsea’s end of season awards dinner to deliver a tongue-in-cheek speech mocking the critics of his side’s style of play and to poke fun at his Premier League rivals.

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Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho talks to the crowd during the club's Premier Leagu

The Blues won the Premier League title with three matches to spare and the Portuguese has previously admitted he opted for more of a substance over style approach as his side homed in on the trophy.
On Tuesday night he told a story about three other teams whose kits bore something of a resemblance to that of Manchester United's, Manchester City's and Arsenal's.
Before that, however, he fired a shot at those who criticised his side, before addressing his players.
Mourinho said: "I don't think my players got the respect that they deserve after what they did from day one till the last day.
"And these are words that I really feel, serious words."
Following the speech, Mourinho added: "The end of the story is just simple. We have to start believing that they learned the lesson and next season will be much, much more difficult for us. We have to be ready for that."
Mourinho's story was accompanied by graphics at the end of season dinner, where players celebrated a season in which they won the Premier League title and Capital One Cup.
"This is a football pitch with two goals, one ball, but there is one team that would like to play without goals," he said, of the plain red-shirted team, or Manchester United.
"That team plays really well and the ball goes and goes and goes and the quality of the ball possession is really beautiful, but no goals.
"And they ask the international board of FIFA to play like this, but they were told that it was not possible, that the bigger percentage of ball possession doesn't win matches and they were not champions.”
Mourinho then moved on to Manchester City, who finished eight points behind Chelsea in second.
He said: "After that there was another team (wearing sky blue shirts) that were less radical and they asked to play only with one goal.
"They were fantastic and they scored a lot of goals and the goals were coming from every position and they score and they score and they score, but they never conceded goals, because no goal.
“Again, the international board told them 'I'm sorry, you can't be champions because football is with two goals'.”
Speaking of Arsenal, Mourinho said: "The third team (red shirts, white sleeves) was almost there, because they wanted to play with two goals.
"They were scoring some, they were also conceding some. They were fantastic. They scored really beautiful goals, they concede some goals too and they were almost there.
"But they asked the international board to play only between January and April. And they told 'no chance, no chance'.
"You have to play between August and May, so they couldn't be champions.”
Lastly, of his own Chelsea side, Mourinho said: “Finally come another team (blue shirts). They wanted to play with the normal rules and they know that to win matches they had to score one more goal than the opponent.
"How can you do this? By scoring a lot of goals or not conceding and scoring one.
"And they did it both ways. Scoring a lot, conceding some. Scoring one goal and conceding no goals.
"That was the option and lots of goals were conceding, they played from August till May and sometimes they brought the bus.”

Ogu proud to have been called again.

Hapoel Be'er Sheva midfielder John Ugochukwu Ogu has spoken of his delight at earning another call-up to the Super Eagles.
The 27-year-old has been in outstanding form for his Israeli club and helped them to the final of the Israeli Cup, before eventually losing out.
He says he's delighted to have been deemed good enough to represent the former African champions again.
"I'm delighted to be called to the national team again, like I always am," he said.
"It is always a great honour and privilege to play for my country and I am proud to have been called again."
The former Academica de Coimbra, of Portugal, ace returned to the Super Eagles setting in March, when the Nigerians played two friendly games against Uganda and South Africa, after almost two years out.
Speaking ahead of the game against Chad, Ogu says they must take the Chadians very seriously.
"We have to take them seriously. We must take any team we play seriously because there are no small teams anymore.
"We will prepare for them like we do for any other team and I am confident things will go well for us," he stated.
The midfielder, along with the 14 other invited overseas based players aren't expected to report to camp until June 2, as they've been given a week off to rest after a long season in Europe.

FOCUS ON MY ACHIEVEMENTS, LEAVE THE HUGE DEBTS

Governor of Lagos state, Babatunde Fashola has called on Lagosians to excuse the huge debt he’s leaving behind and instead focus on the achievements of his administration, during the past eight years.

Fashola made the comment during an interview session with Punch newspaper, when asked about the N418bn debt his administration is leaving behind.

He said, ”I have answered this question many times and it seems people just dwell on debt, but in the context of debt, let us look at the assets too. I am leaving behind hundreds of kilometres of roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, courtrooms, social services, skill centres, streetlights and traffic lights.”

Governor Fashola added that “I am leaving behind also people who now have jobs, who did not have jobs seven years ago. I am leaving behind a stronger security force; a stronger LASTMA, a stronger KAI. That is where the money went. I am leaving behind a rail system. I am leaving behind so many assets for the continuity of life. I am also leaving behind a bigger workforce – a better equipped workforce. I think we should talk less about debt and more about development.”

He spoke on the potentials of the state generating revenue to cater for its expenditures as well ”Lagos State Government still has to continue to raise more money and this takes me to the Internally Generated Revenue that you are talking about. The IGR – standing on its own – is averagely N20 billion. Let us do the math. Some months it is more than that, some months it drops. The monthly allocation from the Federation Account is averagely N10 billion; sometimes it goes up to N11 billion, sometimes it drops to N9 billion. Let us use an average of N10 billion, even though in the last few months it dropped to six and half (N6.5 billion). If we have averagely N30 billion, do the math, divide it by 21 million people. You will get one thousand four hundred and something naira per person in Lagos. It is easy then to say let us collect the IGR you think is big but you are seeing the IGR alone and not seeing the responsibilities.

”Our population has also grown by forced migration in terms of the Internally Displaced Persons across Nigeria. I just sent a team to somewhere in Apapa where there are people displaced from the North-East of Nigeria in camps. We have to go and intervene; we cannot leave them there without help.

“The sanitary condition there is horrendous. If we want a government that only deals with what is available, then every month is the government going to tell everybody, ‘go and take your N1,400; go and build your roads, go and build your schools, go and build your hospitals, manage your security?’ But we have to be futuristic, we have to think ahead. The IGR that you also talked about does not come as N20 billion to us. It comes when somebody pays N1 million for land today, somebody pays for his vehicle registration tomorrow, and somebody pays his ground (land) rent. It is because we are accountable that we always announce at the end of the month, ‘this is what we got.’ If we wait for 30 days for the money to accrue, it means we won’t do any work.

”People should understand that we won’t do any work because the money has not accrued. What do we do? We borrow against it. The banks which we collect it from know that we will pay because the money (IGR) comes through them. So, we take a loan. But we don’t borrow to pay salaries; we don’t borrow for recurrent expenditure, we borrow for capital investments.

“I cannot go and tell the person who is waiting to take his child to the hospital and there is no hospital space; that they should ‘wait, I am waiting to collect money.’ If I give you the contract to build a hospital, I cannot tell you ‘take one naira today, I am waiting for two naira tomorrow.’ It is not a way to plan construction. You must gather your building materials and you must move men to the site. We borrow from the banks. When the monies come, the banks deduct them.”

”The borrowing you are even talking about, measure it against the assets. We took N275bn bond over eight years. The first thing we had to do was to repay the old bond of N15 billion because the Lagos State Government drew N15 billion out of the N25 billion bond. We had to repay that so that we could take the full benefit of what we were planning to do, which was going to be issued in series. And we did all these in public.

Fashola went ahead to justify the spending “What did we use these monies to finance? We used them to finance infrastructure. As the monthly IGR is coming, we are returning 15 per cent of the IGR into a consolidated debt service account. We can’t touch it. Take out 15 per cent of N20bn. We have over a N100 billion in that account to pay the debts. Those who are saying we owe, the system for paying bond is secured. We just paid the second bond, which was the first that I took. We paid it last year. The next bond will be due in 2017 and it is about N60 billion or N70 billion but we have N100 billion in the account. In any event, we have over-secured our liabilities as far as the bonds are concerned. As far as the local short-term loans from banks are concerned, we were able to pay.

”If we don’t want a life of debt, then Lagosians must agree that we reduce our budget to what we earn. We have a budget of about N489 billion. Let us use our IGR as an example: N30 billion multiplied by 12 months is N360 billion. We are already in a hole of about N119bn. If Lagosians want us to reduce it, then will Lagosians agree to stop demanding more services? Certainly, no! Thus, this is the context. And when you look at the countries we aspire to be like: America owes $16 trillion – they owe the whole world – but they have the best space ships, aircraft and army, and they can decide what our military does with the debt they owe the world.

CAF Bans Warri Wolves Keeper For One Year

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced a 12-month ban on Warri Wolves reserve goalkeeper, Rhiogbere Tejiri, for acts for indiscipline.

The governing body said the suspension was placed on Tejiri following a row during Warri Wolves’ 3-0 Confederation Cup first leg defeat to AFC Leopards in Congo.

Completesportsnigeria.com reports that the decision was one of several taken by CAF during its disciplinary board meeting on Sunday in Cairo, Egypt.

Tejiri was accused of spitting at the assistant referee as the goalkeeper, who was not in action, was apparently unhappy with some of the calls during the match.

CAF stated on its website that the one-year ban “will be communicated to FIFA, who may extend it internationally.”

Wolves hosted Leopards in the return leg of their play-off tie this weekend with the winners reaching the group phase of Africa’s second-tier club competition.

The Warri side is the only Nigerian club left on the continent following the early exit of Kano Pillars, Enyimba and Dolphins.

ANCELLOTTI OUT...GUESS WHO IS IN.

KLOPP, BENITEZ, ZIDANE..

Carlo Ancelotti was sacked as Real Madrid manager on Monday night as Florentino Perez wielded his axe for the ninth time in 12 years as club president.

But who is set to replace the 55-year-old at the Bernabeu? Here, we look at five contenders. 

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Carlo Ancelotti was sacked as Real Madrid manager on Monday night after a trophyless season

Florentino Perez announces release of head coach Carlo Ancelotti

ZINEDINE ZIDANE

The Galactico is already part of the coaching staff at the Bernabeu and is highly thought of by president Florentino Perez. But it could be a gamble for his first job in management to come with the 10-time European champions.

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Zinedine Zidane is already part of the coaching staff at the Bernabeu and manages Real Madrid's B-team

RAFAEL BENITEZ

The former Liverpool manager is out of contract after two years at Napoli. He began his coaching career at Real and is not short of confidence. He may not be a popular appointment, but he did well at Chelsea when an unwelcome interim boss.

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Rafa Benitez is out of contract after two years at Napoli and is among the favourites to replace Ancelotti

JURGEN KLOPP

The German leaves Borussia Dortmund this summer after a hugely successful seven-year spell. His signature will be coveted, with Liverpool a possible destination should they part ways with Brendan Rodgers, but Real would surely match his ambition.

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Jurgen Klopp leaves Borussia Dortmund this summer and has been linked with the Madrid job

JORGE JESUS

Should Real opt for another Portuguese, after Jose Mourinho, they may go for Jesus. He has impressed in leading Benfica to back-to-back Portuguese Liga titles and would likely welcome the opportunity to test himself in Madrid.

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Jorge Jesus won back-to-back Portuguese Liga titles and would welcome the move to the Madrid club

UNAI EMERY

The Spaniard could yet lead Sevilla to a second successive Europa League title and, with it, qualification for the 2015/16 Champions League. Emery has been linked with a move to AC Milan, but Madrid would surely appeal more.

TRANSFER GOSSIP

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Loanee: Real Madrid will opt against signing Javier Hernandez on a permanent basis

Hull were relegated, Liverpool humiliated and Chelsea were crowned champions on the final day of the Premier League season.
The next couple of weeks will be for reflection - painful for some, enjoyable for others.
But the real issue on everyone's minds now is how to improve on what they've got. Will Arsenal bring in a 'top quality' striker, will Liverpool shore up that defence?
The rumours keep on coming. With the transfer window just over a month away, what are your club up to?

Transfer stories from today's Daily Mirror

Falcao wants Chelsea move

Radamel Falcao is willing to take a massive pay cut to join Chelsea.
Mirror Sport revealed in March the Colombian wants to stay in the Premier League and ideally wants a club in London.
Falcao’s representatives have already sounded out Chelsea after Manchester Uniteddecided not to take up the option to sign him permanently.
They have made it clear they are willing to scale back his huge £265,000-a-week wages from his parent club Monaco if it makes a deal happen.
Arsenal were keen last August but have seen him flop at Old Trafford while Tottenham are likely to baulk at the finances involved. Valencia and Liverpool have also shown an interest.
READ MORE.

Reuters

Chelsea bound? Radamel Falcao wants to move to west London

Pellegrini to stay at City

Manuel Pellegrini has been given the thumbs up to carry on as Manchester City boss.
The Chilean landed in Canada tonight for the start of City’s North America tour, knowing he will be in charge next season.
He received the green light during talks on Sunday with chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak when they reviewed the campaign and discussed plans for next season.
It’s believed City are sticking with Pellegrini, despite City’s trophyless campaign, because they could not land top target Pep Guardiola.
They feel continuing with him is their next-best option, rather than going for Carlo Ancelotti or Jurgen Klopp – and will review the manager’s situation again before the end of next season.
READ MORE.

Shaun Botterill

Safe: Manuel Pellegrini will stay at Manchester City

Bielsa wants West Ham job

Marseille boss Marcelo Bielsa wants the West Ham job.
The former Chile and Athletic Bilbao coach is understood to have rejected interest from Italian club Sampdoria.
Bielsa has made it clear to the Hammers that he would rather move to the Premier League to succeed Sam Allardyce.
It is a boost for the East Londoners, who had already had the 59-year-old, currently learning English, on their shortlist.
With their move to the Olympic Stadium just 12 months away, West Ham want a big name capable of taking them to the next level.
READ MORE.

Jasper Juinen

Keen: Marcelo Bielsa wants to move to the Premier League

Drogba eyes MLS move

Didier Drogba has set his sights on the MLS after revealing he could never play for another English club.
Chelsea legend Drogba, 37, a target for New York City, is leaving Stamford Bridgeafter getting a hero’s send-off following their title triumph.
Drogba has had offers and is determined to carry on playing for another year but says he could never copy Frank Lampard, who went to Manchester City, while Petr Cech could go to Arsenal.
When asked if he would like to go to the MLS, Drogba said: “Yeah of course, but I am going to take a few days, few weeks to think about what is good for me next. But all I want to do is play.
READ MORE.

Ben Hoskins

Loyal: Didier Drogba says he could never move to another English club

Schneiderlin hints at Arsenal move

Morgan Schneiderlin has ruled out a move to Tottenham and paved the way for a summer switch to north London neighbours Arsenal.
Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino remains keen on signing Schneiderlin after narrowly failing to land the Southampton ace last August.
But £25m-rated Schneiderlin says he will not leave St Mary’s for a club outside the Champions League.
France World Cup star Schneiderlin, 25, said: “I think my decision is made. If I leave Southampton it is for a club that plays better than Europa League."
READ MORE.

Action Images

Snub: Morgan Schneiderlin does not want to move to a Europa League club

AC Milan coach Filippo Inzaghi wants to keep on-loan Chelsea midfielder Marco van Ginkel at the club for another season.

Southampton's on-loan defender Toby Alderweireld hopes his future can be resolved quickly.

Inzaghi wants to keep Van Ginkel at Mila

The 22-year-old Dutch midfielder impressed in Sunday's 3-0 win over Torino but has been limited by injuries for much of the campaign, and Inzaghi believes he can make a huge difference if he gets the chance to return.
"Unfortunately he is not our player," Inzaghi said of Van Ginkel on his club's official website. "But he has grown a lot.
"He has played seven or eight games in a row and we are starting to see a great player.
"He does really well in training.
"Chelsea have great midfielders and he is need of playing.
"My will would be if possible to keep him because he can give us a big hand."
Ankle injuries have limited the Holland international to just 16 appearances all season, but he has started their last 11 Serie A matches after returning to action in March.
Van Ginkel joined Chelsea from Vitesse Arnhem for £8m in July 2013, but has made just four appearances for the Blues. He remains under contract at Stamford Bridge until June 2018.
Jurgen Klopp will take a six-month sabbatical, therefore ruling himself out of the Liverpool job. (Bild)
Real Madrid have rejected the chance to sign Manchester United's Javier Hernandez on a permanent basis. (Express)
West Ham have switched their attention to David Moyes and Unai Emery after their main target - Carlo Ancelotti - ruled himself out of the job. (Guardian)
Michael Laudrup is interested in a return to the Premier League and has set his sights on either West Ham or Newcastle. (Daily Mail)
Tottenham are set to beat Liverpool to the signing of Burnley right-back Kieran Trippier in a £3.5m deal. (Telegraph)
Southampton will offload Uruguayan midfielder Gaston Ramirez this summer after his disappointing loan spell at relegated Hull City. (talkSPORT)

Lampard, Gerrard for England?

Roy Hodgson wants Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard to be part of the England coaching staff when they retire from playing.

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Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard: Midfield duo play their final Premier League g

Lampard and Gerrard play their final Premier League games this weekend before going to play in the United States.
Seventeen years after making his debut, Gerrard will turn out for Liverpool for the final time at Stoke City and Lampard's two decades in the top-flight end with Manchester City's home game against Southampton.
Hodgson admits the Reds and Lampard’s former club Chelsea will be in pole position for the pair’s coaching services but hopes they could be involved with England in the same way Gary Neville has been.
"Probably, yes," Hodgson said when asked if they could form part of the England backroom staff in the future.
"Before that, I'm sure the first people who will try to get hold of them when they return will be Liverpool and Chelsea. I'm pretty sure of that.
"But who's to say they can't be members in an English set-up as well? They certainly know England. They've both had 100 caps. But it's not only their playing ability. It's their leadership qualities. They're both leaders."
Gerrard and Lampard are both doing their coaching badges and Hodgson believes the pair have real potential to be successful managers.
"Both of them have the same ability to do that," he said. "I wouldn't want to put a cigarette paper between them in that respect.
"Their effect on English football has been quite incredible. But I'd rather speak personally.
"What they've done for me during my time as England manager has been quite fantastic not only on the field as players and in training as players, but also as leaders and characters, they've both been outstanding and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.
"They've been real role models for the rest of the players, they've had a natural authority due to the fact they are such good players but they have used their authority in the right way to encourage the younger players to make certain that their strong ethos, which as a coaching staff we share, is spread out amongst all the players.
"I can't thank them enough for what they've done. I really hope they enjoy their American adventures and they will come back even stronger individuals and leaders than they already are.
"We will see an awful lot of benefits going forward with those two players. I can't imagine a long-term future in English football without major contributions from Gerrard and Lampard."