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Poor Euro start by England irks Jose
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JOSE Mourinho was delighted that Chelsea made a winning start to its Champions League campaign on Wednesday, but said he was not happy that Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal had all lost their opening matches in this season’s competition.
Chelsea, which has made a poor start to the defense of its English Premier League title winning only one of its opening five matches, cruised to a 4-0 win over Israeli champion Maccabi Tel Aviv at Stamford Bridge in London.
The Blues were the only one of the EPL’s four contenders to win after Manchester City was beaten 1-2 by Juventus and Manchester United lost 1-2 to PSV Eindhoven on Tuesday.
London neighbor and bitter rival Arsenal was also beaten 1-2 at Dinamo Zagreb on Wednesday.
“I think it is sad and bad and I am not happy about it,” said Mourinho. “I want Man City, Man United and Arsenal to lose in the Premier League but I don’t want them to lose in the Champions League.
“It is not good for us. Season after season, it is difficult for English teams to be successful. At the start of the week if you can make 12 points (with all four winning) and you make only three, that is bad news.”
Although the group stage has only just started, English clubs’ records in Europe’s top club competition in recent seasons has been patchy and could impact on how many teams get spots in the tournament.
England, Spain and Germany currently has four clubs eligible according to the coefficients UEFA uses to determine how many clubs a country is entitled to enter into the competition.
There are five Spanish clubs this season as Sevilla entered as winner of last season’s Europa League.
The top three clubs in the Premier League advance directly to the following season’s group stage, while the team finishing fourth enters the playoffs.
No English club has won the Champions League since Chelsea in 2012, which was also the last season an English club reached the final.
None reached the quarter-finals last season and the EPL’s right to four places could come under threat in two years’ time from Italy, its nearest challenger in the coefficient table, which currently provides three teams for the competition.
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