Jose Mourinho said I had a good face and an ugly face but I had no problem with how honest he was. Playing for him was like joining a cult' Joe Cole on playing for the Special One at Chelsea

"Playing for Jose Mourinho was like joining a cult it's probably like that with all the great managers, Cole tells FourFourTwo. He gave us that confidence, that swagger, that belief that he had in himself. He'd just won the Champions League with Porto and made us feel as though we were unbeatable, impenetrable. Some of it was because of his training methods, and some of it was his man management and the culture he set, the drive that he instilled within us."

"He recognised the winners early on that gets underestimated. The players who couldn't do what he wanted were out of the door straight away. Bang. He pushed and pushed, he knew which players he could rely on. He was brilliant at that. Mourinho pushed me a lot, too. Early in that first season with him, I scored the winner against Liverpool, but he wasn't happy with me."

Joe Cole moved from West Ham to Chelsea in 2003 after West Ham's relegation. Jose Mourinho arrived at Chelsea a year later following Champions League success with Porto. Mourinho implemented intense training methods, blunt honesty and strict man-management that created confidence, swagger and a winning culture. Mourinho identified and retained players who matched his demands and removed those who did not. Mourinho delivered the Premier League title in his first season at Chelsea. Mourinho pushed Joe Cole hard, including publicly criticising his defensive tracking despite a match-winning goal, which drove higher standards.

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