Mourinho rules out quadruple

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho claims it is an impossible dream for an English club to scoop four trophies in one season.

He has an impressive squad of talent at his disposal after signing Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack in the summer, but he fears a clean sweep of Premiership, Champions League, FA Cup and Carling Cup is still out of reach.

Mourinho said: "My personal opinion is that you can't do it. I don't think so. Because it is modern football and that means a lot of matches during the season."

He added: "Modern football means an unbelievable calendar for the national teams, players from a lot of different countries, different continents, different competitions to play in and so much travelling.

"You arrive at a position where you have to make your options. You have to rotate players. You have to decide which games are more important and which competition is more important.

"I don't think it's possible to do it. This is England - a country where you find a lot of teams with ambitions to win the same thing.

"I was in Portugal and I won everything in one season. Okay, I won in Europe but in the other competitions only Porto, Benfica and Sporting could win.

"In England, when you go to the cup competitions, you have 10, 12, 14 teams all fighting for the trophy.

"Even in the Premiership you have a minimum of four teams fighting for it and when you go to the Champions League you have six, seven, eight clubs in Europe all with the same ambition."

Mourinho launches his quest for a third successive Premiership title at home to Manchester City on Sunday and, despite his summer spending spree, the Chelsea boss finds himself short of players.