Chelsea have not been at their best since their shock Champions League exit at the hands of Paris St Germain last month, and Manchester United are on a run that has seen them record six consecutive Premier League victories.
Mourinho’s men will be looking to this game as an opportunity to prove they are still comfortably the best team in the country, and can all but write their name on the trophy in the process.
The main factor behind their impending success this season has been the summer captures of Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas, yet it has not always been the Blues producing such smart business in the transfer market.
Here we have identified five of their most pointless signings of all time.
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Click on Jose Mourinho to reveal the five most pointless Chelsea signings ever
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Winston Bogarde
Signing a Champions League and La Liga title winner on a free transfer didn’t appear to be bad business when Gianluca Vialli signed Dutchman Winston Bogarde in 2000.
However managerial charge soon occurred as Vialli was dismissed, and new boss Claudio Ranieri did not appear to be a fan.
This left Chelsea with a £40,000-a-week 30-year-old not playing, and unwilling to move on.
He infamously sat out the whole of his contract, training every day but not actually playing for the club during the last three years of his contract, making him a contender for one of the most pointless signings in football history.
Carlo Queresma
The man famously and ridiculously dubbed the ‘new Cristiano Ronaldo’ has spent his career trying and failing to prove what all the hype is about at various clubs.
He shocked everyone by scoring twice as Porto recorded a shock 3-1 Champions League win over Bayern Munich this week – perhaps the best thing he has done in the last seven years, a time in which he also completed a pointless move to Chelsea.
The Blues signed him on reputation alone it seemed, as he completed a loan move from Inter Milan in 2009.
He made a total of four league appearances for Chelsea – all as a sub – before being promptly moved on to Besiktas.
Steve Sidwell
Chelsea don’t have a great record when it comes to signing English talent, with Steve Sidwell perhaps the best example.
Yes he had shown promise for one season in the Premier League for then newcomers Reading, but a team fighting on all fronts like Chelsea was a step too far for a player that Arsenal had deemed not good enough during his time as a youth player with the Gunners.
The midfield talent the Blues already had on the books made it all the more strange, whilst the decision to hand him the number nine shirt made the whole thing farcical. When did giving players stupid numbers start anyway?
Tal Ben-Haim
The summer of 2007 was the time in which it seemed Chelsea just forgot they were owned by Roman Abramovich.
Israel international Tal Ben-Haim joined the same summer as Sidwell – along with Claudio Pizzaro, who only just misses out on the list – and was another player who was simply way out of his depth.
He was skinned by Fernando Torres in only his second game for the club in a 1-1 draw at Liverpool, which should have served as a sign he wasn’t up to the task of playing week in week out for a team hoping to win every competition they entered.
He lasted a season before moving on to Manchester City.
Juan Veron
An early signing of the Abramovich era, former boss Claudio Ranieri clearly thought he could resurrect the career of the Argentine midfielder.
Chelsea should have taken the hint that Manchester United were willing to sell Veron for almost half of the £28 million they had paid for him just two years previously.
The Blues forked out £15 million anyway, and Veron managed seven Premier League appearances over four years on the books at Stamford Bridge, with his only contribution coming on his league debut – as he scored the opening goal in a 2-1 win over Liverpool at Anfield.
