Jose Mourinho has continued his war of words with Manuel Pellegrini, with the subject of financial fair play at the heart of their latest battle.
The Chelsea manager has delivered a string of mind games in recent weeks, during which time Chelsea have gone from third place in the Premier League to the top, leapfrogging rivals Arsenal and Manchester City in the process.
Mourinho has continually insisted that his team are outsiders to win the Premier League title whilst also suggesting that rivals Arsenal and City have under performed, these comments having seemingly upset the Manchester City manager.
The latest comments from Pellegrini were in response to allegations from his Chelsea counterpart that City had benefitted from a number of dubious refereeing decisions throughout the season.The Portugese has again hit back at Pellegrini for getting his sums wrong when he suggested Mourinho may have fallen foul of the financial fair play regulations during the transfer window.
Mourinho had this to say in the wake of City’s goalless draw at Norwich, which has seen Pellegrini’s men pick up a solitary point from their last two games and they have been unable to score during this period.
“What I would like to say that Pellegrini was talking about the money we’ve spent. I think he’s a fantastic coach, and I respect that a lot, and on top of that, outside his football career, he’s an engineer by academic formation. ”
“I don’t think an engineer needs a calculator to do [Juan] Mata £37million and [Kevin] De Bruyne £18million, so that’s £55million. Nemanja Matic is £21million and [Mohamed] Salah is £11million. That’s £32million, so 55 minus 32 is 23. So Chelsea, in this transfer window, generated £23million.”
“It’s easy to understand that this is working with financial fair play, fair financial fair play.There are no arguments against that. This is what we’re doing. Others aren’t doing the same. We are building a team for the next decade, if possible. They have a team to win now because they don’t have a team for 10 years.
“They have a team for now, for the next three or four. So experience, potential, power, not worried about Financial Fair Play because, in the summer, they just spend… We don’t need a calculator for this. It’s easy. Plus 23. He has a fantastic team, fantastic players, is a good manager. Has lots of experience, so it’s not a problem for him. 13 matches are 39 points, and that’s an eternity in a league.
“He’s been speaking about winning four competitions, so there’s no reason to change the speech. But the only thing that is funny that he keeps saying he never responds to Mourinho, he never comments about Mourinho. He said that in Spain, too. So, he’s changed.”
Chelsea travel to struggling West Brom on Tuesday night, and Mourinho is wary that teams lower down the league can still have a big influence on the destiny of the title.
“Maybe the teams not in the top four will be very influential in the league,” he said. “Normally, people are pushed to say Chelsea against Arsenal, or Arsenal against City, or Liverpool against City. These are the matches that decide things. But maybe they aren’t”
Mourinho was also able to shed some light on the fitness of key players John Terry and Fernando Torres
“John is still out but I expect him to play next weekend,’ reported Mourinho. ‘We are better than in the last match because Fernando is back and it is one more option for us.”
