Chelsea officials are seeking to play down last night's bizarre scenes as manager Jose Mourinho unleashed the latest of his trademark verbal assaults on... Jose Mourinho.
The comments came at the end of a marathon press conference to promote Mourinho's new line of aftershave eau-da-fuk-duz-he-fink-ee-is, which the Portugeuse coach used as an opportunity to vent spleen on just about every premiership manager, player, referee, commentator and several club mascots. He also found time to criticise senior officials at FIFA, Ant and Dec, the President of Uzbekistan, the taxi driver who brought him to the press conference and Goldie Hawn. Finally, as dawn was breaking and only a handful of journalists remained conscious, the Chelsea boss seemed to finally have come to the end of his long list of "bastards, cheats, liars and linesmen", when suddenly he broke into a speel of renewed venom directed at "that whining hypocrite, Jose Mourinho".
Reporters were jolted awake as the former Porto man directed a tirade of foul-mouthed abuse at himself. He claimed to be a "trout-faced, mud-slinging, shit-stirrer who concocts fantastic conspiracy theories to avoid admitting that his team's lack-lustre season is down to nothing more sinister than a run of mediocre performances and too many superstars sharing the same hydro-spa". He also gave a stinging third person account of his "cry-baby antics and transparent psychological nipple twisting". He claimed that it was "high time the flashy nonce was given a good hiding and told to stop telling tales outside of school".
A spokesman for Chelsea claimed that Jose was simply "tired and emotional after a good rant" but experts have claimed that the reports show clear signs of Newell syndrome, the feeling that the whole world is against you and are laughing at your socks.
Frank Lampard was quoted as saying something but it was too brain blendingly banal to bother reporting.
