Jose Mourinho: Manchester City Are A Lucky Team| Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has rejected Tim Sherwoods claim that Manchester City are the best team on the planet and insists the Premier League leaders have been lucky this season. Spurs manager Sherwood said City were peerless after his side were thrashed 5-1 at home by Manuel Pellegrinis men. But ahead of Chelseas trip to the Etihad on Monday, Mourinho said City have been assisted by referees. The reality is they have many crucial decisions in their favour, he said. Man Citys Lucky Breaks. . . Tim Krul and Chieck Tiote protest 26 December: 2-1 win v Liverpool - Raheem Sterling puts the ball in the net to give the Reds the lead, but is incorrectly flagged offside. - Luis Suarez has appeals for a penalty turned down in the closing minutes after having his shirt tugged by Joleon Lescott. 12 January: 2-0 win v Newcastle - Cheick Tiotes long-range equaliser is ruled out after an offside Yoan Gouffran is judged to have interfered with play. 29 January: 5-1 win v Tottenham - Trailing 1-0, Spurs have a goal harshly disallowed for offside when Michael Dawson touches in Christian Eriksens free-kick. - Spurs defender Danny Rose is sent off despite appearing to get a touch on the ball before being penalised for fouling Edin Dzeko. The striker steps up to score the resulting penalty and put City 2-0 in front. Mourinho cited numerous examples of what he saw as Citys good fortune in recent weeks, including disallowed goals against them by Liverpools Raheem Sterling, Newcastles Cheick Tiote and Tottenhams Michael Dawson. They are lucky, he added. The referees, they try to do their best and sometimes they make mistakes and normally during the season the mistakes are split between teams. In their case, they have everything in their favour. Laughing off Sherwoods claim, the Portuguese said City would be judged on their performance in the Champions League - they face Barcelona in the first knockout round of the tournament, with the first leg on 18 February. Maybe, for the Tottenham manager, the planet is England, said Mourinho. You will see (how good City are) in the Champions League. You will see in the next couple of months. City manager Manuel Pellegrini refused to rise to Mourinhos bait, preferring to keep the focus on the importance of the match. It is not me against Mourinho, or him against me, he said. On Monday it is Manchester City against Chelsea, both teams are fighting for the title. Nothing more. For both teams it is a game of six points. With Arsenal we are the three involved in the fight for the title, and also Liverpool and Everton, so every game we play against all those teams is a game for six points. City will be without prolific striker Sergio Aguero, who faces a month on the sidelines after pulling up with a hamstring injury against Tottenham. Aguero, who has scored 26 goals this season, had only recently returned from a calf problem when he stayed on for the full 90 minutes against Watford in the FA Cup on 25 January, scoring a hat-trick to keep City in the competition. But Pellegrini denied that the Cup outing had contributed to the Argentines latest problem and insisted they could cope without him. It was not a mistake because for us the most important thing is to win the match that we have to play. Maybe in that game he played 10 or 15 minutes more than planned but I dont think that had a direct relation with his injury. Hes a very important player for us because hes a top player. Theres no doubt about that, but weve just played one month or five weeks without him and weve continued winning and weve continued scoring goals. City have won all 11 of their Premier League home games this season, averaging almost four goals per game. Chelsea defender Gary Cahill says his team face the ultimate test against a side that have scored 115 times in all competitions. Theyre banging goals in left, right and centre. Its going to be really tough, he said. We had a really good result against them at home; away from home (at the Etihad Stadium) theyve been so, so strong. I suppose its the ultimate test. Its going to be a really, really tough game. Weve got to try to look forward to those games and going there on Monday is exciting. Sergio Agueros half-century. . . Sergio Aguero has scored 50 Premier League goals from 81 games, the fifth fastest man to a half century, behind Andy Cole, Alan Shearer, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Fernando Torres. Well, we still have Fernando Torres with us, so who cares about Sergio Aguero???
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 20:33:48 +0000
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