Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has sensationally claimed that he wants Crystal Palace manager Tony Pulis to be awarded the Manager of the Year award. This is usually given to the manager responsible for winning the championship, but the Portuguese feels that Pulis has done an exceptional job since coming to the club midway through the campaign. When he arrived, Crystal Palace were staring at relegation. Now, they are fighting to get into the top half of the table. They will do so with the win over Chelsea, although it will be mightily difficult since the blues come as the table leaders.
After being relieved of his duties at Stoke City in the summer, Pulis has managed to transform a team struggling against relegation. Ahead of the trip to Selhurst Park, Mourinho has also claimed that he loves to visit this ground since it is one of the few places in England where the fans are extremely noisy and support their teams with a lot of passion. According to him, Portsmouth is one of those places, but since the South Coast team is travelling down in the lower leagues, he says that a visit to Crystal Palace is a must.
Mourinho has cleared rumours that he will rest most of his players in anticipation of the midweek PSG test.
“We played there in my first season, in 2004, but many of the players haven’t – and some of them don’t even know where the stadium is! I do and I know what we can expect. They are noisy, they support their team, they put pressure on opponents and the referee. But that’s nice. Without violence, that’s something I like. I miss Portsmouth, so I’m happy to go to Crystal Palace. They are not yet still in the Premier League. They still need points,” said Pulis.