• Premier League

Mourinho: I'll stay for as long as Chelsea want

Jose Mourinho says he will stay at Chelsea for as long as club owner Roman Abramovich wants him to.

Mourinho's side have enjoyed an unbeaten start to the season but the Portuguese knows his job will come under threat should he not deliver silverware again this season.

"There's no other country, club or investment that motivates me. I will only leave when Mr Abramovich calls me to tell me it is over," Mourinho told Portuguese newspaper Record. "Only on that day will I look for other solutions.

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"Last time [at Chelsea] it was different because even though I was heart and soul in the project I was leading, I always asked myself 'which will be the next one?' Now it's the first time I don't think about it."

For the first time in four full seasons as a Chelsea manager, Mourinho finished without a trophy last season. The 51-year-old knows a second successive campaign without something to show for it would bring pressure.

That is ultimately what led to his shock Chelsea exit in September 2007; having relinquished the title to Manchester United the season before, the hierarchy deemed an FA Cup and League Cup double not good enough. Mourinho then left following the club's indifferent start to the 2007/08 campaign.

Should it happen again, however, Mourinho indicated he would be open to take over at another Premier League club.

He said: "If it had to be, yes, but my priority will always be Chelsea and never think about the interest of others.

"I know football and know I won't be here five, eight, 10 years if I don't manage to win. Of course not. That's not my essence as a coach, because I don't like to live in those comfort zones. It doesn't fit my personality.

"When I have to think about the matter then we'll see. The difference is that last time I didn't have the aim of staying many, many years. Now I'll stay as long as they want me to. I really am the happy one."

Mourinho's side travel to Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League on Tuesday night. It is a former stomping ground for Mourinho, who was part of Sir Bobby Robson's backroom staff at the club before Robson was sacked in 1993.

"I have the best memories of Sporting. I only had one bad one, which was the day we learned Sporting was going to dispense with the services of manager Bobby Robson," Mourinho said.

"It was a project in which people had their heart and soul and the manager felt they could become champions. I was the do-it-all boy, willing to help.

"He had a nice group who believed it was possible to win the league. It wasn't. But that's part of football."

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