Mourinho stews after City beating
Print Edition
Under-fire Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho cut a frustrated figure as he weathered questions about his side’s bruising 0-3 defeat at the hands of English Premier League title rival Manchester City.
Ever the pugilist, Mourinho protested that Chelsea’s improved second-half performance in Manchester on Sunday meant the scoreline was “fake”, but neither the impression left by the game nor the statistics bore him out.
Eden Hazard forced City goalkeeper Joe Hart to save at 1-0, but it was Chelsea’s only real chance at that stage and the hosts finished the game having recorded eight shots on target to the visitors’ three.
Bloodied after a week that saw him roundly criticized for demoting medics Eva Carneiro and Jon Fearn over a row about their treatment of Hazard during the opening-day 2-2 draw with Swansea City, Mourinho was reduced to claiming that City had abandoned its principles by tightening up in the second half.
It was a tactic he had employed after Chelsea’s 0-1 loss to Arsenal in the Community Shield, when he accused Arsene Wenger’s team of “leaving their philosophy in the dressing room”, and it felt like a similarly redundant observation at the Etihad Stadium.
City manager Manuel Pellegrini reacted prudently as his players fought to protect the lead procured by Sergio Aguero’s 31st-minute goal, sending on Samir Nasri and Martin Demichelis.
Mourinho said it was a sign that City felt “in danger”, but there was a grain of truth in Pellegrini’s assertion that “in our worst moment, Chelsea didn’t have chances”.
Mourinho, whose side trails City by five points, said he was startled to see Aguero granted so much space in the first half when he and his defenders had spent “all week” planning how to stop him.
He also explained that his surprising decision to remove John Terry at half-time — the first time he has withdrawn his captain in 177 league games — was purely due to a desire to add Kurt Zouma’s pace to the back four and move their defensive line further forward.
Terry, 34, played every single second of Chelsea’s title triumph last season and there was a note of irritation in Mourinho’s voice when he was asked why it was he, and not Gary Cahill, who had been withdrawn. “I don’t know if you ask many questions to (Rafael) Benitez, Andre Villas-Boas, Roberto di Matteo, to the ones that never played him,” Mourinho replied, citing some of his predecessors in the Chelsea dug-out.
The display is only like to accelerate Chelsea’s pursuit of Everton center-back John Stones. Left-back Abdul Rahman Baba’s arrival from Augsburg was confirmed by the German club on Sunday.
While Mourinho stewed, Pellegrini was left to reflect on a performance that immediately reinstalled his side, deposed by Chelsea last season, as the Premier League’s team to beat.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
