Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho denied that the he was responsible for Adrian Mutu’s failed drug test., caliming the re was only so much a club could do to monitor a player’s off-the-pitch behaviour.
Mourinho said that the best way of judging a player’s mental state was on the training ground and in this regard Mutu had been found wanting.
“You can make mistakes from a sporting point of view… and on the social side you have to try to know the maximum you can.”
“Mutu was here before me so he was not my mistake,” added Mourinho, who replaced Claudio Ranieri at Chelsea last July.
Mutu signed for Chelsea for £15.8m in July 2003, fell out with Ranieri amid newspaper stories of night-clubbing and womanising.
“When you see a player committed, concentrated, strong…his life outside of football is good.
“When you see a player tired, having difficulty concentrating, with many changes of mood…then you put a question mark by him.”
Mourinho also argued that a distinction needed to be drawn between performance enhancing drugs and social drugs.
“But I think we also have a responsibility to try to help and find solutions because we are an example to young people,” Mourinho added.
Mutu had a hearing at the English FA on Thursday and the case is likely to last at least two weeks before the length of any possible suspension is known.
Mutu denied on Romanian television on Thursday that he had taken cocaine. “I took something to make me feel good, I’ll tell you later what it was,” he said.
On Tuesday, English players’ union chief Gordon Taylor said Mutu had admitted testing positive for cocaine.
