Tough luck for those wanting to watch Club Reps Uncut.Confused? So were many pub landlords across west London, who opted to screen the Liverpool stroll against Anderlecht instead, deciding it was less painful to listen to moaning Chelsea supporters than surf the interminable amount of channels available these days.Maybe Jose Mourinho has as much swing as Ferguson when it comes to hiding his club's embarrassments.. Win, draw or, Roy Keane forbid, lose at Old Trafford, Sir Alex Ferguson will be sincere in his welcome for Jose Mourinho when they toast his 19th anniversary as manager of Manchester United tomorrow. Putting a bottle of red and a friendship aside, however, Ferguson does not disguise the enmity he feels for a Chelsea regime that has succeeded in presenting him with a "must-win" League encounter on the first weekend in November. Following a clear-the-air meeting between Keane and his players, Ferguson sought closure on one of the most arduous weeks of his reign yesterday, albeit with a rebuke to his captain for attempting to go public with his disaffection. Yet should United respond to inflict a first League defeat in 41 matches on the champions, it will not allay the deep-rooted concerns of Ferguson, who admitted he has been forced to alter his entire recruitment policy as a consequence of the methods Chelsea have employed to overtake United on and off the field of play.. Chelsea's manager Jose Mourinho believes that their visit to Manchester United tomorrow is the ideal opportunity to stimulate a return to acceptable levels of performance for a team which has become almost too good for its own good. A team meeting in the wake of Tuesday's Champions' League defeat at Real Betis threw up the paradoxical problem for the Premiership champions. "It is one thing to be in a situation where you know you cannot lose points in the Premiership, and another thing to have 10 or 12 points difference and feel, in this moment, no adrenaline," Mourinho said."A lot of people are better without pressure.
Other people are better under pressure, and at Chelsea our dressing-room is full of top characters, of people used to playing for big things and big responsibilities, and we need this kind of adrenaline."Matches like the one we have on Sunday are the most difficult matches to play, but the easiest matches to prepare. I don't have to motivate players or demand their concentration or commitment or desire. So it is good timing."Mourinho clearly believed the slackness that had crept into recent domestic games had carried over into Europe, adding pointedly that Chelsea had beaten the Spanish side 4-0 in their match at Stamford Bridge."When you win so many times it is difficult," he added, with the ghost of a smile "It is true. Maybe we should have had that kind of conversation before we lose a game It is human nature - and we are wrong.
Only when the result is really negative do you go deep, chasing for reasons."When I said at the beginning of the season I thought that the Premiership would be more difficult for us, I was telling what I feel. At this moment I was thinking it would be a very short difference."It is stupid to say it is too easy for us. But the reality is that last season, with much more pressure, our reaction was much more positive. At the beginning of this season there was not this kind of pressure."But if you make mistakes and mistakes and we lose one, two, three matches, by one or two months instead of a 10-point lead we can have only one point. Are we waiting for that to perform again? That's the discussion we had. I expect to lose games,drop points, but I don't expect to have a bad period of consecutive negative results." That expectation is one which, perhaps until recently, his Manchester United counterpart Sir Alex Ferguson shared.