Mourinho confident Fàbregas will deal with any hostile Arsenal reception
• Diego Costa to be assessed to see if he can return at Emirates on Sunday
• Arsène Wenger urges Arsenal fans to respect Chelsea’s Cesc Fàbregas
José Mourinho has claimed Cesc Fàbregas’s principal motivation when opting to join Chelsea last summer in preference to a potential return to Arsenal was a desire to win titles, as the Spain midfielder prepares to visit the Emirates Stadium for the first time with his new club.
Fàbregas joined Arsenal as a 16-year-old from Barcelona in 2003, establishing himself as one of the Premier League’s most accomplished players and winning the 2005 FA Cup, before returning to the Catalan club in 2011. When it became clear that his three-year spell back in Spain was to be curtailed last summer, Arsenal effectively waived first refusal to re-sign the player, leading to the 27-year-old moving to Stamford Bridge.
Asked before Sunday’s clash between the current top two how he had convinced Fàbregas to move to Chelsea, Mourinho said: “I just promised him we’d build a team very adapted to his style of play. That he was going to be an important player in our project. And that, normally, good projects end with titles. He was looking for that. That’s all I can say.”
The former Arsenal captain will be braced for a hostile reception at the Emirates though Mourinho, whose side can move 13 points clear of their rivals with victory, has no qualms about the player’s ability to cope in that atmosphere. “I’m not worried with that,” he said. “Frank Lampard played at Stamford Bridge without any kind of problem and with a good reception. I don’t see a reason for Fàbregas not to have the same at the Emirates.
“But, if he has some bad reactions, I think he’s one of the players who is more than ready. He played in Barcelona with an Arsenal shirt. Why can’t he play at the Emirates with a Chelsea shirt? No problem.”
Mourinho will assess Diego Costa’s fitness on Saturday before determining whether Chelsea’s leading scorer can return from a hamstring injury in the derby. Didier Drogba, who has scored 15 goals in 15 appearances against Arsenal for Chelsea and Galatasaray, is likely to start the game, with Dominic Solanke, 17, standing by to feature on the bench while Loïc Rémy continues his rehabilitation from a calf injury.
“Didier for sure, he’s good, fine,” said Mourinho when asked about his forward options for the game. “Rémy not for sure. Diego, let’s make a decision tomorrow. Diego’s a very important player for us, but the reality is we are coping with the difficulties of every match without him. Rémy did well for us. Didier is doing well for us.
“The team is playing in a different way to adapt to those two, but we are doing our job. We decided Solanke wouldn’t play yesterday with the under-21s, also to have him fresh and ready. Didier and Solanke, or Didier and Diego. We make that decision tomorrow.”
Despite a tricky last couple of months, Mourinho said he was happy with his team’s recent performances. “We played amazingly well during the most part of the season, scoring a lot of goals and controlling games very well through the quality of our possession. In the last period we are more strategic, less artistic, but we are having results. I would love Diego to be back, but I trust the other [strikers].”
Mourinho also spoke of his often strained relationship with the Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger, who pushed him in the fixture at Stamford Bridge in October. “For me, he’s not my rival,” said the Chelsea manager. “I don’t feel that. He’s a manager of a big club in the same city where I work and live. A big club with the same objectives that we have in the competitions we play. With that comes a bit of rivalry.”
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