Drogba: Mourinho Turned Me Into a Winner At Chelsea

Didier Drogba believes Jose Mourinho is the best manager he’s worked under and says the Portuguese turned him into a winner during his time at Chelsea.

The Ivorian will face his former club for the first time on Wednesday as the Blues meet Galatasaray in the Champions League.

Drogba, who won 10 honours during his eight-year stint at Stamford Bridge and bowed out with a Champions League medal, says his mentality is down to the work ethic instilled in him by Mourinho.

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11/4 Didier Drogba is 11/4 with bet365 to score v Chelsea”Of all the managers I’ve worked with he’s [Mourinho] the first, I would put him first. Our philosophy when I was there was very simple. He educated us to hate losing,” Drogba told reporters.

“Sometimes, in training, you could play three or four games of five minutes without a goal. It shows you the intensity of training and the way we working. Everyone was so concentrated.

“When you conceded a goal, you could see [John Terry] shouting and kicking the post, like he was losing a very important game. It was only training, imagine when you have that spirit in a Premier League or a Champions League game. We refused to lose.

“We knew everything about the opponents. We were ready, when we went on the pitch, even for a difficult game, a difficult start, we knew we would win. It was a machine. It was like we were a machine.”

The 35-year-old, who joined Chelsea in 2004 from Marseille, says he nearly rejected the move, before Mourinho’s persuasion.

Drogba said: “The year that I left for Chelsea, it was the first time that I had been playing in the Champions League, my second year of playing in the top French league so I was not sure if I could make it or not.

“Then this guy comes and says: ‘you have to come with me and I want to make you one of the best strikers in the Premier League.’

“Going there, to Chelsea, was the biggest gamble for me. He sold it to me. He said: ‘You are a good player but if you want to be the best then you have to come and play for me.’

“He’s the one who brought me from Marseille but he said you have to be good and if you’re not good you’re not playing. So Jose was fair and that’s what I like about him. That’s why people respect him.”