Jose Mourinho fires back at Manuel Pellegrini
By Mike Dyce
Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini and his Chelsea counterpart Jose Mourinho have been engaging in a war of words in the media lately. Mourinho said City have been getting some beneficial calls from referees, and Pellegrini responded by questioning Chelsea’s spending in the January transfer window suggesting Chelsea may have fallen foul of the financial fair play regulations during the transfer window.
“What I would like to say that Pellegrini was talking about the money we’ve spent,” said Mourinho, via Sky Sports. “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.”