Mourinho's best quotes

Jose Mourinho treated the football world to a number of entertaining quotes during his stint as Chelsea manager.

"Please don't call me arrogant, but I'm European champion and I think I'm a special one" - Mourinho introduces himself to the English press after arriving from Porto in summer 2004.

"We have top players and, sorry if I'm arrogant, we have a top manager."

"If I wanted to have an easy job... I would have stayed at Porto - beautiful blue chair, the UEFA Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me."

"There are only two ways for me to leave Chelsea. One way is in June 2010 when I finish my contract and if the club doesn't give me a new one. It is the end of my contract and I am out. The second way is for Chelsea to sack me. The way of the manager leaving the club by deciding to walk away, no chance! I will never do this to Chelsea supporters." - When asked if success in the Carling Cup Final might mean it would be the last trophy he would win for Chelsea.

"As we say in Portugal, they brought the bus and they left the bus in front of the goal." - After a 0-0 draw with Tottenham Hotspur.

"If he helped me out in training we would be bottom of the league and if I had to work in his world of big business, we would be bankrupt." - On Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.

Poor people

"Pressure? What pressure? Pressure is poor people in the world trying to feed their families. Working from dawn till dusk just to feed their young. There is no pressure in football." - Speaking in a post-match interview.

"Everybody wants Chelsea to lose a game. When they do they should declare a public holiday." - Speaking in a press conference about Chelsea's leading Barclays Premier League start in the 2005-06 season.

"We are on top at the moment but not because of the club's financial power. We are in contention for a lot of trophies because of my hard work."

"I am more scared of bird flu than football. What is football compared with life? I have to buy some masks and stuff - maybe for my team as well." - Speaking soon after H5N1 spread to Britain, and when Chelsea's league lead over Manchester United had slipped to seven points.

The melon

"Young players are a little bit like melons. Only when you open and taste the melon are you 100 percent sure that the melon is good. Sometimes you have beautiful melons but they don't taste very good and some other melons are a bit ugly and when you open them, the taste is fantastic." - Mourinho's melon metaphor on young players, 9th June 2007.

"It is omelettes and eggs. No eggs - no omelettes! It depends on the quality of the eggs. In the supermarket you have class one, two or class three eggs and some are more expensive than others and some give you better omelettes. So when the class one eggs are in Waitrose and you cannot go there, you have a problem" - Shorn of the likes of injury victims Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack, Ricardo Carvalho and Didier Drogba, Mourinho cooked up a surreal analogy ahead of Tuesday's fateful draw with Rosenborg.