Mourinho Stadium Ban: Matic and Mourinho have their say on Stoke.

Heading into tomorrow nights game at Stoke knowing that Jose Mourinho will serve his "Stadium Ban" both Nemanja Matic and the Mourinho himself have both spoken ahead of the game.

In what is already a difficult game, the FA decided to give Jose the ban despite the club lodging an appeal against the initial decision. So, we will see Chelsea take on our hosts without the influence of the manager which will be strange.

When asked of the that decision and the game itself, Nemanja Matic (who had a good game against Kiev on Wednesday) said:

“Of course it is more easy when the coach is on the bench and especially at half-time, when he can say something. But we also have other great coaches, and they will be prepared for everything, and we have to be ready for that. It’s going to be strange, of course. I think that I’m here almost two years and we have not played without a coach yet, so it is going to be strange, but this is football and we will be ready.

Sometimes when the game stops and there is a foul, he shows with the hands and you know what you have to do. You can’t really hear him because there are 40,000 people here, and it’s difficult. Sometimes you hear him, and especially if you play on his side of the pitch.”

We want to win, and of course we want to win also for the coach, for our club, and we know that in the last couple of weeks, when everyone has been saying we are bad, we know that we have quality.

We know that it is not easy to recover from that, because when you play for Chelsea you always have more responsibility than other clubs, because Chelsea always wants to win. Our supporters are used to winning trophies.”

Now over to Mourinho himself and he was asked of the situation tomorrow and responded by saying:

"I think they [the players] will know I am with them. They know I am going to prepare the team until the moment they go to the game."

They know that during the game the action of the manager is not so crucial and I think the fact they know why I am not on the bench is also important for the group."

It's going to unusual to not see him there but maybe, just maybe, it will give everyone a kick up the arse to get out there and perform for the manager and themselves to stick two fingers up at the FA.

What do you people think of Jose's ban? Is it deserved? Over the top? Have others got away with worse?