José Mourinho will allow himself five minutes to celebrate the Premier League title when it is won before turning his attentions to the task of retaining the trophy next term.

Chelsea, who start the weekend 13 points clear at the top, can claim their first league championship in five years by defeating Crystal Palace on Sunday. It will be Mourinho's eighth league title from his time at Porto, Internazionale, Real Madrid and in two spells at the London club and the manager will have a replica trophy made to commemorate the achievement to add to his personal collection.

The real silverware will not be presented to the league winners until after their final home game, against Sunderland on May 24th, though Mourinho is unperturbed at the prospect of waiting a further three weeks even if the title is secured this weekend. “I don’t care, really,” he said. “The meaning is the important thing: the feeling, the emotion . . . that’s what stays with you forever.

“I have replicas of every cup I won, and I don’t care about the replicas. Or the medals. They’re in my houses. I have some in Portugal, some here, some in my son’s room. I really don’t care.

“What stays forever is the feeling, the emotion, the memory of the moment. I have clear in my head every one of these moments I lived. What motivated me are the basic things in football, like when you are a kid you play in the street with your neighbours, three against three, four against four, and you want to win. That’s the most pure feeling in football.

Same feeling

“If you are in a championship, you want to win it. It doesn’t depend on the level you are. To be champions in the Premier League is not a different feeling to winning the championship in League One, League Two or the Conference. The happiness, also the frustrations . . . in terms of human feelings, they’re exactly the same.

“But the moment itself, it only lasts for a flash. For that moment a final finishes, or the game that gives you the league ends, you have like a flash of the people you love most, the people who are with you, a little bit of the most important moments that lead to that trophy.

“It’s like a quick flash. And, with me, five minutes later, I move on. I have to think about next season, to prepare. We need to think about that.”

Chelsea have led the division – barring Tottenham Hotspur topping the table on goal difference for the second full week of the campaign – all season, re-establishing their advantage in the new year after Manchester City had threatened to haul them in.

Mourinho, who will welcome back Loic Remy against Palace but will not risk Diego Costa, has relished the fact that the pressure has always been on the chasing pack.

“I prefer that because it depends only on you,” he said. “When people sometimes say: ‘It’s yours to lose, so you’re under pressure’ . . . we are not under pressure. The pressure is on the teams who have to win and wait for us to lose.

“It happened a bit to us last season. We were winning and winning but we had to wait for the others to drop points. This season, basically since March, when we recovered the distance we’d lost in December, the problem was for the others to deal with. They had to win.

“Some of them had fantastic runs. Manchester United had I don’t know how many victories consecutively [six], Arsenal too [eight], but they couldn’t close the gap. This is the real pressure. For us, it was just about us. Nothing else matters. Just us. This weekend we don’t care about Hull City against Arsenal, or United against West Bromwich Albion. It’s just about us. This is the feeling I like. Not to be depending on the others.

“I’m never nervous, to be fair. When it goes to the countdown, I like the feeling that we have to force it. We can’t wait for it. I like the feeling of the last month: come on, let’s go, we need four victories, three victories, two. Now we need one. I like this feeling of being almost there but not there. I like this last push.”

Mourinho said Costa would play again this season only if Chelsea were struggling to secure the title. The forward has been troubled by hamstring problems since his final few months at Atlético Madrid last year and suffered his most recent relapse against Stoke on April 4th.

“If we win on Sunday, I would say he doesn’t play next week against Liverpool,” the manager said. “If we don’t win on Sunday and we need points against Liverpool, I’d say he would play against them. It’s about judging it result after result. If we don’t need him, probably he doesn’t play.”

‘Outstanding’

Meanwhile, Rio Ferdinand has said that although he “no longer gets on” with John Terry, he can admit that the Chelsea defender has been “outstanding” this season.

The former England team-mates do not speak as a result of the fall-out from Terry’s racism case with Ferdinand’s brother, Anton.

Rio Ferdinand last year used his autobiography to say he found it "impossible to forgive or forget" the pain of that incident but on Friday, in his column in the Sun, he felt moved to praise Terry's on-field performances.

He said: “It’s no secret that me and John Terry are not the closest of mates. But just because we no longer get on does not mean I’ve lost my admiration for him as a footballer. His performances for Chelsea this season have been nothing short of outstanding and I’m not afraid to say it.” Guardian Service