‘Mourinho doesn’t have the balls to manage Leeds’

Massimo Cellino does not believe that Jose Mourinho has “the balls” to manage Leeds.

Mourinho is the heavy favourite to replace Louis van Gaal as manager of Manchester United this summer, but Leeds owner Cellino has revealed that he has discussed the Leeds role with the Portuguese boss before.

Cellino added that he has also spoken about the manager’s job at Elland Road with Carlo Ancelotti, who will take over as Bayern Munich boss in the summer, while he has denied recent claims that Italian World Cup-winning captain Fabio Cannavaro is his latest managerial target to replace Steve Evans.

“Sometimes to pretend we were f***ing right we don’t fire the manager and most of the time we f*** the club because we won’t admit we took the wrong guy,” Cellino, who has a reputation for firing managers, told the Daily Telegraph. “Not everyone is Sir Alex Ferguson. All the other managers want to act like Ferguson but they don’t have the skills so they cause damage.”

On Mourinho, Cellino added: “I told him, ‘If you had the balls, you should come and manage Leeds. Bring Leeds into the Premier League and then the Champions League. That’s balls.’ You want to play football – come with me to Leeds. Mourinho, like others, has to ask himself if he is still a coach. How do you find out? By going to Manchester United?

“Ancelotti called me. ‘Massimo, bring the club into the Premier League and I come to you because the only place I miss and want to go back to is England’. For me a good coach still has to show he’s a good coach. Come here and show me.

“If we lose but we tried to win I’m happy,” he explains. “We lose and we tried to draw – fired. That is Massimo Cellino.

“I’m 100 per cent not looking to appoint Cannavaro as manager,” he said, of recent reports. “There’s not one chance.”