José Mourinho says he wants to avoid psychological combat with his counterpart at Manchester United, David Moyes, before the new Premier League season
• Chelsea's transfer dealing done – except for Wayne Rooney
• 'The sooner you have the players the better. No club is safe'
• Ashley Cole on his debt to José Mourinho
José Mourinho has warned rival clubs the current inertia in the Premier League transfer market could end up provoking a late flurry of business that risks destabilising sides with the season already under way.
The Portuguese, speaking at a press conference in Indonesia before Thursday's game against a local All Stars XI, was speaking from a position of relative authority having stipulated that Chelsea's summer business is virtually done. Mourinho has seen three players – Andre Schürrle, Mark Schwarzer and Marco van Ginkel – join and still hopes to add Wayne Rooney from Manchester United to their number, but he stressed none of his own senior players are for sale, leaving the England striker the last piece in the jigsaw.
The United manager, David Moyes, had suggested earlier this week that the bulk of his own business may be conducted late in the summer, with other clubs rendered vulnerable to raids as desperation sets in and the deadline approaches on 2 September. Indeed, Mourinho said the potential departure of key personnel unsettled by interest from elsewhere could serve to undermine their challenge.
"It depends on the philosophy of each one but, as a manager, the sooner you have the players the better," said the Chelsea manager. "You know the squad you have, you know what you have to work with, you have time to do that. But yes he [Moyes] is right. The market is open until 2 September and many clubs are waiting to the last moment to make their decisions, and those decisions affect a number of other clubs. The one who sells has to go and buy, then they have to buy to replace, so no club is safe.
"Until the last minute, a club can go there and steal a player ... not steal a player, but steal the balance that a manager has when he's working with a team. In that aspect, we are OK because we don't have players to sell, so none of my players is leaving under any circumstances. Many teams will be under pressure until the last moment without knowing how the squad is going to be."
Mourinho was asked whether he was already indulging in "mind games" with Moyes. "If to say my colleague in United is a great coach, deserves success, deserves time to work, didn't win trophies at Everton because it's difficult to win trophies there ... if that is playing mind games, what would you say if I speak bad about him?" he added. "The best thing is not to speak, and if I don't speak no one says nothing."
• Left-back 'didn't play as well as I could' under Mourinho before
• 'We owe it to him to win the title or the Champions League'
Ashley Cole has insisted he still "owes" José Mourinho having failed to demonstrate his best form under the Portuguese during his previous spell in charge of Chelsea, with the England defender hoping to prolong his career at Stamford Bridge beyond the end of the season ahead.
Cole made a rare appearance in front of the media as Chelsea's touring squad arrived in Indonesia on Tuesday and were welcomed by hundreds of reporters at a press conference at the Hyatt hotel, the left-back sitting alongside the recently reappointed manager.
Mourinho had signed the defender controversially from Arsenal back in 2006, Chelsea and the player having been found guilty of breaching Premier League rules by meeting secretly at London's Royal Park hotel 18 months earlier, an offence that eventually saw club, player and manager fined a total of £450,000.
The full-back had subsequently completed the move regardless, in exchange for £5m and William Gallas, and went on to win the League Cup and FA Cup in his only full season under Mourinho before the Portuguese departed in September 2007.
Yet the player, who was hampered by injury that campaign, admitted he did not play his best football in that period. "Having the manager back now from 2006, the manager who bought me, is important because I still feel I owe him something," he said. "I didn't play as well as I could back then, and as well as I have for Chelsea since, when he bought me.
"I owe him a lot, personally. I wouldn't say he's different now. He's always had one aim, one objective, and that's to win. I think it doesn't matter what you've achieved in the game, or what you've done in football. You've got to train well and give 100% for him.
"The one thing is he'll always give players a chance, if they're training and playing well. The boys are confident and happy he's back. You can see there's a new lease of life for some of the players, and that can only be good for us. As a team, I hope we can go on and win many trophies under him. It's a big club and we need to win trophies. And, with the new players coming in this summer, I think we can achieve that and win back the Premier League title."
There was a period last season when it appeared Rafael Benítez's successor may not have a chance to work with Cole, 32, whose contract was due to expire on 30 June and with negotiations having apparently hit an impasse.
Real Madrid, then under Mourinho, and Paris Saint-Germain were keen to lure him away from the Premier League. Yet the offer of a new one-year deal was eventually accepted in late January, prolonging his stay in west London into an eighth season, with the player having now tentatively suggested he would be keen to remain longer still.
Asked about that prospect, Cole added: "That's not down to me. I've got to keep training hard, playing well and make sure I keep my place in the team. We'll see what goes from there.
"I love Chelsea. I've been here seven years now and I'd love to stay here as long as I can. I hope so. I've won things but from day one when I first started playing football, I've always wanted to win. That feeling's never gone away.
"I wouldn't say I've had an unfulfilled Chelsea career. I've been lucky enough to win a few trophies. I hope to win more. Having the manager back, we can do it all together. As players we owe it to the manager to win the league or the Champions League again.
"For me, I jumped at the chance [to work with Mourinho in 2006]. He's a great manager. He's proved how good he is with the number of trophies he's won with different teams. He's great at motivating players and keeping you on your toes, doing what you should be doing. It's a pleasure to play under him. To play under such a great manager is an honour."
• Chelsea's three Spain internationals will miss Hull match
• Manager José Mourinho makes decision on loan players
José Mourinho is resigned to being without his Spanish trio Juan Mata, Fernando Torres and César Azpilicueta when Chelsea start their Premier League campaign at home to Hull City on 18 August. The trio are due back in London only 24 hours before the opener after Spain's friendly in Ecuador.
The World Cup and European Championship winners will play in Guayaquil on 14 August, the night England host Scotland at Wembley, with all three of Chelsea's Spanish contingent expected to be included in Vicente del Bosque's squad. Mourinho is already planning his team for the visit of promoted Hull on the following Sunday and, while the extra 24 hours granted by television coverage means the trio could be included on the bench, the Chelsea manager does not anticipate starting with any of the three.
"My lineup will depend a lot on which players go away with their national teams two days before the opening of the Premier League," Mourinho said. "If one has to go to Ecuador and comes back and arrives in London on Saturday without having slept after a 15-hour flight, coming in to train on Saturday morning, I don't think he is going to play on Sunday. If a player plays for England on Wednesday against Scotland, let's say plays for 45 minutes at Wembley and then an hour after the game he is at home in Cobham sleeping, he is in a better condition to play. The team will be decided game after game and week after week.
"What happens before the Hull City game has an impact. Also, if we have to play against Aston Villa two or three days later – we still don't know when that will be [the game is still to be rescheduled, having been set for the weekend Chelsea play in the European Super Cup in Prague on 30 August] – I will have to think about two or three matches at the same time. If the game is postponed until two months later and I have only one match in a week, I will think differently. It depends on the situation."
Chelsea arrive in Jakarta on Tuesday to prepare for their game against an Indonesia All Star XI on Thursday, with the manager still assessing his options and his players attempting to impress. While youngsters such as Kevin De Bruyne, who is fling back to London for a scan on the knee he injured in Malaysia, and Romelu Lukaku are expected to stay at the club, Mourinho has already decided to loan out Nathaniel Chalobah, Lucas Piazón and Josh McEachran for the season to gain further senior experience. Chelsea are assessing whether they can be placed at Premier League or Championship clubs.
Chalobah played in central midfield for Watford last term, Piazón had six months with Málaga, while McEachran spent the season under Tony Mowbray at Middlesbrough.
"We are thinking of letting Nathaniel go on loan for a last season," Mourinho said. "That is our intention and he knows. We have discussed that with him. He is a very, very good player. I like him very much and am very impressed. For sure, he is a Chelsea player. We will see whether or not it is a Premier League club but he would have to play every weekend for the last year of his loan period. He could be in our squad already but we think one more season will help and then he will come back for 2014-15. It will be his last one out on loan. He is very, very good.
"Josh will also go on loan, Lucas Piazón too. Wallace will go on loan – he has no work permit and will go on loan in Europe, not in South America, to make the transfer easier for him. Islam Feruz will stay in our under-21s."
Mourinho has already confirmed that Bertrand Traoré, the promising 17-year-old Burkina Faso international, will sign professional terms on his 18th birthday and, should he fail to secure a work permit, will be loaned to a European club in the hope that he will earn the necessary clearance.
Another promising youngster, the Czech centre-half Tomas Kalas, will be a part of the senior setup for the campaign ahead. The defender, 20, a £5.2m signing from Sigma Olomouc in 2010, has spent the past two years on loan at Vitesse Arnhem but will offer Mourinho valuable cover across his back line.
"It was the first day of training when Mr Mourinho came to me and asked me if I would accept the challenge to be a first-team player and give it everything and, of course, I accepted," said Kalas, who played last season largely at right-back. "I hope I am ready but now I have to prove myself.
"I have no doubts. I played 63 games in Holland and another season maybe would be worse than better. I learned a lot of technical and tactical skills playing in the Eredivisie, where everybody plays football from the goalkeeper to the central defender. To play 10 or 20 games for Chelsea would be brilliant."
• Chelsea manager once had fiery relationship with Wenger
• 'I respect him a lot – I wouldn't bet for one single problem'
José Mourinho and Arsène Wenger have repaired the relationship that disintegrated so acrimoniously during the Portuguese's first spell in English football, with the recently returned Chelsea manager claiming there would not be "one single problem" flaring between the pair over the campaign ahead.
Wenger's Arsenal side had just completed an unbeaten league campaign and were the reigning champions when Mourinho arrived in the Premier League in 2004, only for Chelsea to establish themselves as the dominant force over the next two seasons. Their rapid emergence prised apart the stranglehold imposed by Arsenal and Manchester United but while Mourinho's relations with Sir Alex Ferguson were generally cordial, his clashes with Wenger were frequent and public. Their verbal sniping prompted Mourinho's infamous accusation that the Frenchman was "a voyeur" in October 2005, adding: "There are some guys who, when they are at home, they have a big telescope to see what happens in other families … He's worried about us, he's always talking about us. It's Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea. I don't know if he wants my job. He loves Chelsea."
There seemed little prospect of a recovery in their dealings after that outburst, with Mourinho armed with a 120-page dossier of Wenger's comments about his rivals and the Arsenal manager threatening legal action, retorting: "When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes.
Yet, with Mourinho having since spent time away from England at Internazionale and Real Madrid, a ceasefire has apparently been called. "He's a nice guy," Mourinho said. "I had a chance to meet him much, much better when I left England and I started meeting him in Uefa [coaching meetings], at the Euros, the World Cup. I think I met him a few times, we had dinner and so on. And when you are not in the same league and when you are not playing against each other, it is easier to get to know people, it is easier to go deeper. It is easy to speak about football, he's a very nice guy.
"I'm back in the Premier League, yes, but he's still a nice guy. I respect him a lot and I will show it always. In football, things like this happen. Sometimes, even if you are friends and respect each other, sometimes you say something the other doesn't like and you react, but at the end of the day I respect him a lot and I have the feeling that he is the same in relation to me. I wouldn't bet for one single problem between us."
Wenger and Mourinho, at 50, are the only two managers starting next season's Premier League campaign who have claimed the title and, as such, are effectively the elder statesmen of the division. They spoke at length about football at those Uefa meetings and, while the Portuguese has admitted he would not be able to contemplate going into a ninth season since last claiming silverware, a prospect awaiting Arsenal and Wenger, there is admiration for his opposite number's longevity.
"He has to teach me how (he has done it) because I want to be here 17 years," said Mourinho. "Our last conversation was that I want to be here 17 years. It wasn't uncomfortable talking because it was with other coaches, in Uefa, in Europe, so it was in a good, nice atmosphere and I enjoyed speaking with him about football. He is a person with a big culture, very open to give his opinion to things, very good."
Asked if he could go eight years without a trophy, Mourinho added: "No, because of my mentality. I would feel strange. But you can do very good work for a club without winning lots of trophies, you can. Memories in football are normally short, there is no long-term memory. People many times forget what people have done. I don't think he's affected by that. He's a big, experienced man, he has self-esteem, he knows what he did, he knows what he is doing.
"To have the respect like he has from his board is fundamental and it's not because of his nice face. It's because of the work he does and also because of the respect people have for him. So, for sure, he is happy to be there. As you know, he had all these chances to leave, all these good, important clubs interested in him, so when he refuses and he wants to stay at Arsenal it's because he loves it there. It's because he has expectations for the future."
