Four games in and Chelsea's "CRISIS" alert has already been sounding off throughout the media. Apparently, Roman Abramovich made a (rare?) visit to the training grounds recently as well, and that's just added fuel to the fire. Would Abramovich dismiss José Mourinho just a month into the renewed four-year contract?
Mourinho's reaction was none other than laughter.
"(Laughing) Do you think I have to speak to the owner about the owner coming to his club? That's my problem. I don't have to tell you."
-José Mourinho; source: Evening Standard
Mourinho's response might sound a bit defensive in a way, but 4 points from 4 matches is a perfect time to sound a bit defensive. Hopefully there are three points coming home with us from Everton shortly and we don't have to worry about further questions down this line. The club have shown definite intent lately of going in the opposite direction of managerial instability, building and planning for the long-term rather than prioritizing nothing but the short-term. Mourinho is key to those plans, and I think everybody at the club recognizes that. (For now.)
Of course, long-term gains are no excuse for short-term pain and we need to get the season back on track. How will we go about doing that? Here's Jose with the (sort of) answers.
"I have some ideas [of what's gone wrong]. Will I share them? No.
"The only thing I can share is that in every match we played better than the result. Even against West Bromwich where we won, the 3-2 victory looks a very, very, very tight match and it wasn't. The result should be completely different. I say the same in the defeats against City and Palace and the draw against Swansea. Circumstances of the match gave us results worse than the performance. So I'm positive.
"You know you can say both ways: the team is underperforming because some player are underperforming, or some players are underperforming and because of that the team is underperforming. We are strong. We are together. I believe in them, they believe in me. So we are positive.
"We go to Everton with the intention to win the match, but with lots of respect for a quality opponent."
-José Mourinho; source: Evening Standard
Ok, so those aren't exactly specific answers, but I suppose we'll just have to trust, wait, and see.