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LONDON. — Jose Mourinho welcomed Brendan Rodgers to the Barclays English Premiership title dogfight and then heaped pressure on Liverpool by claiming their lack of European football puts them in a “privileged position”.“I am sure it is a four-horse race now,” said Mourinho, whose Chelsea side top the table, with Liverpool four points behind in fourth. “They have a big advantage because they don’t play in the Champions League.”
After sneaking a win against Fulham on Wednesday night thanks to Steven Gerrard’s last-gasp penalty, Rodgers claimed Liverpool are like a “chihuahua that runs in between the horses’ legs”.
But Mourinho, who recently suggested Chelsea are like a “little horse” not yet ready to win the title, retorted: “If Brendan has a chihuahua it is one that trains a lot and rests a lot. The other dogs, they don’t train a lot because they play a lot and they don’t rest because they play every three days.
“And when the Barclays English Premier League goes to the crucial point, we all will have to play Champions League at the same time.
“To play, for example, like we are going to do in Istanbul against Galatasaray on the Wednesday, Fulham on the Saturday.
“Brendan’s chihuahua doesn’t do that. During the week it sleeps, eats and trains a little bit. So I have to say his chihuahua is a privileged one. Next season he will see what it is like to play in two, three, four competitions. This season he has this privilege which gives him a big advantage.”
Mourinho, who appointed Rodgers youth-team coach during his first stint at Stamford Bridge, added: “If we don’t win it I would prefer Brendan to win it because he is my friend. When I play against my friend I want to win and he wants to win. But if I don’t win, I would like Brendan to do it.”
That cordiality has certainly not been extended to great rival Arsene Wenger in the past. And, true to form, Mourinho did not waste the opportunity to turn the screw on an Arsenal side who have won only one of their last four games and suffered a 5-1 drubbing by Liverpool.
“Arsenal have spent many, many years working together making these players grow up,” he said. Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott and Kieran Gibbs — they are not kids any more. They were kids but now they are mature players.
“The manager, with this group of players, four, five or six years working with these players and then adding fantastic players like Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla or Per Mertesacker, they are a very good team.”
Despite being favourites to win the title, Mourinho continues to play down Chelsea’s chances, sticking to the line that his team, unlike Arsenal, are a work in progress.
He said: “If you are talking about the team that looks really solid, the team that defends well but at the same time creates a lot — that is my team.
“But when I say we’re not the top candidate everyone thinks, ‘Here he is again’, with what you like to call the mind games. But it’s just my feeling. The matches I have lost were matches we should have won. They were the easy ones to win. The match against Everton was so easy to win but we couldn’t score a goal out of I don’t know how many chances.
But we conceded and we lost. We went to Newcastle; it was so easy to win. In the first 30 minutes we hit the post, we had chances but we lost the game. We went to Stoke; it was so easy to win. Against West Ham we had 25 shots on goal.
“We are a team that if we had that last ‘click’, that click is to put the ball in the net, then I would say to you that we are favourites. Our team is going in a very good direction but at this moment I would not say we are favourites, but we are candidates.”
Next up for Chelsea is today’s trip to Manchester City in the last 16 of the FA Cup and the chance to beat the side he continues to rate as the best team in the country for the third time this season.
The war of words has been simmering between Mourinho and City boss Manuel Pellegrini in recent weeks, and he said: ‘We have a very difficult draw in the FA Cup. We play the best team in the country in their house.
“We have beaten them twice but that makes it even more difficult to beat them for a third time. And if people were saying that the last time we did it there was no Fernandinho and no Sergio Aguero, the first time we beat them they were playing.” — Mailonline.
Online Reporter