Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho vented his fury following the broadcast of comments he made ‘off the record’ about striker Samuel Eto’o, as the English Premier League club prepared to face Galatasaray in the Champions League.

The focus moved away from the first leg of their last-16 tie in Istanbul on Wednesday to the fallout caused by the broadcast of what Mourinho thought was a private conversation on French television.

On Sunday night, Canal Plus showed Mourinho talking about Eto’o, joking that nobody knew whether the Cameroon player was 32 or 35 while also saying he could be tempted to move for Monaco’s Colombian striker Radamel Falcao, because “I don’t have a centre-forward and he doesn’t have a team. He plays in front of 3000 people.”

But, before Chelsea’s eve-of-game training session at the base of Galatasaray’s rivals Kasimpasa, outside Istanbul, Mourinho hit out at the journalist responsible for the recording.

“I think you (all) should be embarrassed as media professionals because, from an ethical point of view, you can’t be happy that a colleague can record a private conversation and make it public,” said the Portuguese.

“It’s not a happy comment for me, absolutely. But, from an ethical point of view, it’s a real disgrace.

“I’m not defending what I said. I’m attacking something I think is fundamental in your area.

“From my perspective, the comment is not a good one, but it’s not something I would do in an official way.

“First of all, because I don’t make fun; second, because if there are managers who really defend their players, I am obviously one of them; and third, because Samuel Eto’o is Samuel Eto’o.

“It was with him that I had the best season of my career (winning the treble with Inter Milan in 2010). He is one of the few players who is working with me in a second different club, and a manager never does that when he doesn’t like the player or the person.”