GLEN JOHNSON EXCLUSIVE: I lost respect for Mourinho after he broke a promise... that's why Rodgers is a better boss

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Glen Johnson is explaining why Brendan Rodgers is a better manager than Jose Mourinho.
‘It was difficult for me under Jose at Chelsea because there was a moment when he said I deserved to play on merit,’ he recalls. ‘He said if I played well in the next game I would play the week after.  I got man of the match so he couldn’t drop me.
‘Then in the next game he said the same thing and I got man of the match again. Then we had another game and after that Barcelona. I remember speaking to my agent and saying, “He won’t play me in this game because if I play well then he has to play me against Barcelona”, and I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Instruction: Glen Johnson thinks Brendan Rodgers is a better man-manager than Jose Mourinho

Strained relations: Johnson said he lost respect for Mourinho after he broke a promise

Smiling: Johnson and Mourinho celebrate a 2-0 win at Tottenham in January 2005

‘He didn’t play me in that game and from that moment I just lost it and thought, “Well, how am I meant to respect you now? It’s just finished”.
‘Brendan wouldn’t do that. He’s shown that if you’re good enough you’re old enough and you’ll play in the big games if you deserve to. So in terms of man-management, Brendan is definitely better.’ 
While Johnson’s time at  Chelsea — or specifically, his time there under Mourinho — is the only period of a 12-year top-flight career about which he harbours regrets, it did afford him the chance to work with Rodgers, whose star quality, Johnson says, was already obvious.
‘You could see he had aims to become a manager,’ he says. ‘He was travelling all over the place to pick up new techniques from coaches and obviously he was fortunate enough to work for Mourinho.

Spell: Johnson joined Liverpool from Portsmouth in 2009 having previously been at Chelsea and West Ham

 

Mourinho is one of the best in the world and I would never say he’s not because of what happened between us. But Brendan is different to Jose, he has his own mentality and is definitely one of the best.’ 
Liverpool have improved dramatically this campaign. At this stage last season they were 29 points off top spot compared to only four now and Johnson believes Rodgers deserves credit for sticking with his philosophy, even when results weren’t going their way.
‘Some managers like the thought of playing the way Brendan does but haven’t got the confidence or knowhow to pull it off. Others would probably have panicked and changed their philosophy just to try and win. But Brendan was mentally strong enough and knew what he was trying to implement was right and that once we grabbed hold of it we would be a success.’ 
And so it has proved. Liverpool may be, in Rodgers’ words, the ‘chihuahuas’ of the title race but Johnson is adamant they deserve to be taken seriously as contenders.
Moreover, he can see similarities between this Liverpool team and the Chelsea team he was part of which won two Premier League titles under Mourinho