FA Premiership: Jose Mourinho has declared himself relaxed after reports linking Chelsea squad members with large gambling habits, but he has warned his players not to cross disciplinary boundaries.
"The next morning I know what they did the night before," he said yesterday, after tabloid newspapers showed John Terry and Eidur Gudjohnsen in a betting shop and claimed the former gambled up to £5,000 a week. Mourinho, though, was more concerned about late nights and drinking.
"In training it is easy to see. When the training is demanding, there has to be concentration and they have to be committed so it's easy to feel and smell. What worries me is drink, not eating properly, going home very late, going to nightclubs, bars and pubs during the week when they have to wake up and train the next day, and forgetting their families, their parents."
Mourinho said Terry's habit is not a disciplinary problem because betting is part of English culture and he will not change that even though it is frowned upon in Portugal.
"Every street I find a minimum of three bookmakers' shops. That's your country. That's your culture. If a Portuguese player goes to a bookmaker, I am very worried because our fathers, since we were kids, say to us 'not one coin'. Not one single coin in bets, playing cards, casinos. We have this in every family. This is our culture."
Mourinho feels Terry's gambling is harmless. "I can guess that £1,000 for John Terry will be £20 for you," he said. "If you bet £50 a week, does it make it a drama to the organisation of your economical life? I don't think so."
Mourinho said he was happy with his current squad and will not sell or buy players in the January transfer window unless there are significant injuries, despite the depletion caused by the African Nations Cup in Egypt, where Michael Essien, Geremi and and Didier Drogba will play.
Mourinho has ruled out a move for Bayern Munich's Michael Ballack, despite the German club's chairman, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, saying Ballack's agent had offered the player to both Real Madrid and Chelsea.
Meanwhile, Newcastle manager Graeme Souness has insisted he will not quit St James' Park. Souness is under pressure after the 1-0 defeat in the English League Cup against an understrength Wigan side.
"That can never happen," he said. "It is a waste of time even asking me the question about whether I will quit. The biggest single reason is that long after football, I have got to be able to look at myself in the mirror when I'm shaving. It won't happen."
"I understand I personally have been getting a great deal of criticism, but that's the price on the ticket. I can understand our fans' disappointment, frustration, anger at the way we played at Wigan.
"I would not argue with anyone who said we were poor, we were bad on the night. That can happen to any team. We were just poor, and that can happen. It's happened before and it will happen again."
Newcastle have not won a major trophy since 1969, but Souness - who described the display at Wigan as "miserable and horrible" - said: "Records are there to be broken and sooner or later someone will do that here and I firmly believe I will do that."
Guardian Service
