Mourinho believes Leicester can march to PL title

But Mourinho believes the Italian should have loftier ambitions.

“It really hurts to see Chelsea at this moment”.

“One, to be champions, which would be fantastic”. Another would be to finish top four, which again would be a super achievement.

Mourinho, said Leicester City has the ability to finish in top six this season, which would also be a great ending.

Fortunately for Mourinho – who succeeded Ranieri as Chelsea manager when he first took charge of the club in 2004 – the latest emerging crisis was stalled by the mid-week Champions League defeat of FC Porto, which ensured that Chelsea advanced to the last 16 as winners of their group. Having him back at full strength signals a change in play and, consequently, results for the Blues.

“In the same way, “sack (Garry) Monk”, “sack Mourinho”, “sack everyone that is doing bad”, Claudio deserves all the credit”.

There will be a lot of things going through the minds of football chairmen when they fire a manager – panic, greed, fear, ambition, anger, finance – but racial issues are not going to be among them.

With everything falling apart at Stamford Bridge, Jose Mourinho has done something that might make his relationship with the players even more bitter. For this Roman Abramovich bought the team.

“I think you should be concerned”, Mourinho said. I think I did enough to deserve to be here.

“But for me it is finished there, my job finished one year before they won the title”.

“In that case it was the end of a cycle”.

However, Mourinho begs to differ and stated that Vardy’s style would remain unchanged no matter where he goes.

“The manager is free to go, to choose a different club, a different life”.

Chelsea will also be confident of getting something from tonight’s match, but they will need to show more attacking intent and simply can not rely on sitting deep and then counter-attacking.

“It was a complete change”. While Costa’s exlcusion and bib throw suggested unrest in the Chelsea camp, the manager simply rotated his squad and kept his oft-injured striker healthy for an important Champions League tie against Porto. It was Ranieri who brought in Frank Lampard – signing him for £11m in 2001 – along with other recruits such as William Gallas, Joe Cole and Eidur Gudjohnsen.

Ranieri comes face to face with Mourinho tonight knowing that the Portuguese boss benefited from his groundwork.

“He was in the two rivals”.

“But it wasn’t possible for Eriksson and Abramovich said: ‘OK, you start and we’ll see who we can buy'”. But a win here would go a long way towards putting all that nonsense behind us. But I think a fast player with objective and being direct can have success everywhere.