- Premier League
Mourinho expects Drogba Chelsea return
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho expects Didier Drogba to "return to the club one day", and has not ruled out the possibility of the Ivorian taking up a coaching role in West London.
Mourinho brought Drogba to Chelsea from Marseille in 2004 and, under the Portuguese, he helped fire the club to successive league titles, establishing himself as a Blues legend in the process.
The striker underlined his iconic status at Stamford Bridge when scoring the winning penalty against Bayern Munich as the club ended their long wait for Champions League glory in 2012.
He left Chelsea after sealing that triumph and played for Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua in an ill-fated spell before joining Galatasaray in January.
Drogba has one year left on his contract in Turkey, but Mourinho believes that Chelsea will always be the player's true home, and tipped the Ivory Coast star to return to the Blues - in some capacity - in the future.
"Drogba is worshipped at this club and this is perfectly normal," Mourinho told Portuguese daily A Bola. "I think one day he'll return to Chelsea.
"He is a very important player in Chelsea's history and will always be in the memory of the fans, the management, the owner and his team-mates.
"It is normal that he will have a future at Chelsea. As a coach? I do not know."
Drogba and Mourinho enjoyed an extremely close relationship during the latter's first tenure at Chelsea, with Paulo Ferreira once claiming the player "wept like a child" when the coach revealed he was leaving the club.