Wednesday Dec 06 2006 08:22
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho insists he wants to keep Shaun Wright-Phillips at Stamford Bridge after the diminutive former Manchester City star broke his scoring duck for the Blues in the 2-0 Champions League victory over Levski Sofia.
Wright-Phillips has been linked with a move to West ham United recently but Mourinho insists he has no desire to see him leave.
"I am happy for him. He is a special case. He is a boy that deserves to be happy. He is a great professional," he said.
"Normally he has chances coming from the substitute's bench for 20 or 25 minutes. It is not easy for him to express the qualities he has doing that.
"I am not giving him a lot of chances from the start of matches but talk of him leaving his just speculation. I want him to stay. We know the squad is good in quality but short on numbers.
"We cannot lose players. We have 19 outfield players for the four competitions we are still involved in - we need every player.
"If the answers from him are positive ones then that is good for me, the team and for the boy. His future does not depend on a goal he scored."
Mourinho also warned his side not to under-estimate the quality of opposition they will face in the knockout stages of the Champions League despite finishing top of Group A.
He added: "Levski played okay. They gave us a game and it was good because I could play some players who didn't have a lot of minutes in their legs."
Referring to the latter stages of the competition, he added: "As a start, the only thing we know is we don't play Barcelona or any of the English teams. But we can play Real Madrid, Roma or Inter Milan so it's going to be tough.
"We will play the second game at home. That can be a little, little advantage."
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