Jose Mourinho is set for ‘showdown talks’ with Roma having received a ‘call from a Chelsea chief’ over the vacant manager’s position at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues currently have Frank Lampard in interim charge of the club as they conduct an exhaustive search for a new manager that looks set to end with Mauricio Pochettino in the hotseat.
The former Spurs boss is said to have verbally agreed to take permanent charge at the end of the season, with the finer points of his contract now being discussed.
Co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart have been in charge of the selection process, with early frontrunners Julian Nagelsmann and Luis Enrique no longer in the running after in-person talks with the Blues bosses.
Chelsea also wanted to meet Mourinho according to Corriere dello Sport (via Sport Witness), who claim ‘a Chelsea chief called Mourinho to meet him and include him in their wishlist’.
Though it’s claimed the Portuguese boss, who has managed the club twice before, winning three Premier League titles, snubbed their advances as he focused on the remainder of the season at Roma, who are battling to secure Champions League qualification.
Mourinho does though want to speak to Roma’s owners at the end of the season, in what Express describe as ‘showdown talks’.
Last year, Mourinho added fuel to the fire of a possible third stint at Chelsea, opening up on his emotional attachment to the club despite two acrimonious exits.
“Of course, my English connection is Chelsea, that’s the way I see things, as a Chelsea man after two periods of Chelsea and six years,” Mourinho told BT Sport.
Lampard takes Chelsea to the Emirates on Tuesday on the back of five defeats in five as interim boss, and the Blues legend said before the clash that the club hierarchy are right to take their time in selecting a new permanent boss.
He said: “Do they [Chelsea] need to take their time to get the right manager? Yeah, they absolutely should do. We are at that stage of the season now where we understand that we are not going to get into Europe, and other managers are probably going: ‘I’ll take a look at this and wait till pre-season when I can enforce what I want to do’.. It’s not silly on their part – we’ve got the top four in the run-in and that is going to be a difficult process of games.”
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