Mourinho has brought a great shaft of bright light to the Barclays Premiership since arriving at Stamford Bridge 18 months ago, energising the title race before being blamed for running off with the prize, but he feels he will only be truly celebrated when the champions turn to chumps.

“Everybody was crying when we kept on winning and winning,” Mourinho said. “So we draw at Goodison Park and that made people more happy and maybe gave them more hope. It was what everybody was waiting for. One day when we lose there will be a national holiday in the country.

“There is a feeling the country needs Chelsea to lose matches for people to feel more enthusiastic about the fight. When we broke ten years of Manchester United and Arsenal people expected us to feel guilty for breaking that period.

“We cannot be guilty about that, we should be proud of it and try to have our own period. It looks like we should feel guilty, but we’re not guilty.”

Having claimed that his side had worked Chelsea out after Sunday’s 1-1 draw, James Beattie is certainly guilty of shooting himself in the foot. Two draws and a penalty shoot-out defeat in four days may have eroded Chelsea’s air of invincibility but Mourinho is unperturbed, slaughtering Beattie in a single sentence.

“James Beattie should be worried because he has been in the club for one year and has scored two goals,” he said. “He should be worried with that, not what Chelsea are doing.

“James Beattie had one touch of the ball in 90 minutes. He scored from the penalty spot, but other than that he didn’t touch the ball. They say that John Terry was afraid of James Beattie? I don’t think so! I think we’re ready for everything. If they think we’re little kids, afraid of the fight, they’re very wrong.”

Chelsea are bracing themselves for another fight this afternoon as Blackburn know only one way of playing. Having seen off both footballing and physical threats in recent weeks, though, Mourinho contends that the only way of beating his team is to get lucky.

“The best way to beat Chelsea is to be lucky,” he said. “I can say this because I was the first one on to the pitch on Wednesday and give congratulations to Charlton players. I was with them in their glory moment and they were very, very lucky.

“You cannot say the way to beat Chelsea is to play counter-attack because we have very fast players and we are a very good team recovering from ball lost. You cannot say the way to beat Chelsea is to kick long balls up and to play a direct game because we’ve proved that we can cope. You cannot say the best way to beat Chelsea is to attack, to try to win the game directly, because we are very strong on the counter- attack. We can kill the opponent on the counter-attack.

“Because we are strong in every aspect I don’t think there is a way to stop us playing and winning. They have to play very well and to be lucky. We are not saying we’re unbeatable or that we’re supermen, but because we’re the best team we win more matches than the other teams.”