Brendan Rodgers has admitted the fierce rivalry between Liverpool and Chelsea means he and Jose Mourinho can no longer be close friends. The teams clash at Anfield on Tuesday night in the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final with a place at Wembley at stake.And though Chelsea manager Mourinho has tried to make peace by telling the London club’s fans to stop taunting Steven Gerrard, Rodgers is equally determined to be the man who stops his old boss achieving a clean sweep of all four competitions.
Mourinho helped Rodgers on his career path by giving him a job at Chelsea in 2004, and then advised him to take the role at Anfield when he was approached by Fenway Sports Group in 2012.
But the Liverpool manager admits that while he has ‘total respect’ for Mourinho, they no longer talk as frequently as they once did.
He said: ‘I have a huge respect for him. He is a wonderful man and coach. But you are so engrossed in your own work, you don’t communicate as much, you don’t have the conversations you had before and, ultimately, you could be a rival. The opportunity to work with him in that period of three and a bit years was invaluable to me.
‘Hopefully, in some ways, I helped him as well because we had a lot of communication.’
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