Mourinho makes his excuses as season of goodwill is lost on
Fergie
Chelsea manager still wants some luck for Christmas despite narrow
win, writes Paul Wilson
Sunday December 24, 2006
The Observer
The Christmas period often acts as an indicator of the eventual
destination of the Premiership title. And, with a stoppage-time
victory for Chelsea keeping Manchester United's lead to just two
points, the closest contest for years unexpectedly became even more
entertaining.
Sir Alex Ferguson began gloating after his team's 3-0 win at Aston
Villa, mocking Jose Mourinho for promising Chelsea would be on top
of the table by Christmas, while the Chelsea manager used his
post-match press conference to complain that his squad was not
strong enough.
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'Everyone thinks we have the perfect squad, but we don't,' Mourinho
said after watching a side lacking John Terry and Petr Cech make
hard work of winning at Wigan. 'We only have three central
defenders and when John Terry is injured we only have two. We no
longer have the best goalkeeper in the world, either. We have no
Joe Cole, we have suspensions, red cards and bad decisions against
us. If we get any more injuries we are in big trouble and we
already have Khalid Boulahrouz suspended.
'Manchester United are top of the table with no injuries, no
suspensions and no referees like the one we had at Tottenham.
Everything is going fantastically for them. It is the opposite to
last season, when everything was fantastic for us and they had all
the problems - Paul Scholes' eye injury, Ryan Giggs being out for a
while. This season we are having the problems.'
People might laugh at that, with Chelsea able to bring £30million
Andriy Shevchenko on for the last 10 minutes at the JJB and the
transfer window around the corner, though Roman Abramovich has just
started to hint that the big spending days might be over. Chelsea's
owner would like to see his investment in the club's academy pay
off and, while that may be admirable, it will not be of much
assistance to Mourinho this season.
Manchester United, with Scholes not only fully recovered but back
to his sparkling best, are presently sitting pretty, with Wigan to
come at home on Boxing Day. Paul Jewell will do well to raise his
team's morale after a desperately cruel defeat, whereas United will
be full of confidence after a handsome away win prevented Chelsea
gaining any ground.
Ferguson was in combative mood as a result. 'It shows that we
shouldn't believe Jose Mourinho. He said Chelsea would be top at
Christmas and they are not. He had to apologise after lying about
an Everton player this week. Perhaps he should be apologising
again.'
Mourinho claimed he could not remember making any promises to the
effect that Chelsea would be top by Christmas and is still
insisting that, with only two points separating the teams, the
title can be decided when United visit Stamford Bridge. That
fixture is not until mid-April, the week after Easter, and if the
two teams are still as close then it will be some match.