You gotta love Mourinho... it's never dull
http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/premiership/article2483848.ece Mourinho has only scorn for Benitez record at Liverpool
By Jason Burt
Published: 25 April 2007
Jose Mourinho yesterday casually tossed a hand-grenade into the already incendiary mix for tonight's Champions League semi-final when, unprompted, he declared that he expected Liverpool to "chase" his striker Didier Drogba so that he is booked and misses next week's second leg.
The Chelsea manager also accused Liverpool of having only played "three or four matches" since January in order to concentrate on Europe's premier competition because, by then, they had already given up on the Premiership.
In, even by his standards, a virtuoso performance, Mourinho also questioned whether or not Liverpool were a "big club" under Rafael Benítez as they target cup competitions.
"If you are not a big club you choose one competition and you fight in that competition and forget the others," Mourinho said. "Big clubs cannot do this. We have to try the maximum we can. It's a risk of win everything or the risk of win nothing. It's a risk we have to take." Mourinho even went as far as to ridicule Liverpool's league record under Benítez. "I'm not a statistics man but in the last three seasons, including this one, in the Premiership I think Chelsea have had 60 more points than Liverpool," he said. "That's a lot.
"So if they are a great team in knock-out competitions, [and] we have to admit that, we have to praise them for that. They are a top knock-out team, but if you play in only one competition for half of the season then you have great conditions. And since January they have only played Champions League."
And what if he had, like Benítez, not won the league during that time? Would he have kept his job? "Three years without a Premiership?" Mourinho asked, incredulously, before glancing at the Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck who was an amused observer at yesterday's press conference. "That's a question to ask Mr Buck, but I don't think so."
That need to compete, by Mourinho's calculation, meant that Chelsea had played 27 matches and Liverpool only three or four - he even appeared to exclude the second-leg of the quarter-final of PSV Eindhoven. Indeed he was wholly dismissive of the Dutch champions while adding, as a by the way, that Liverpool had also qualified for the knock-out stages "through an easy group".
Chelsea, meanwhile, faced Werder Bremen and Barcelona - who Liverpool knocked out in the last 16 - and then had tough games against Porto and Valencia.
"The game before Barcelona, Liverpool was one week in Portugal preparing the game," Mourinho said. "We played three matches. We had a final in the Carling Cup, we had two games against Tottenham in the FA Cup." He then added, in a statement that may raise a few eyebrows with Uefa, that Liverpool used the PSV tie to "clean [yellow] cards". "There is another factor that can play." Mourinho said of the semi-final tie. "The fact is that they don't have yellow cards. They have the chance even to clean cards because for example when you see [Dirk] Kuyt get a yellow card in the last minute against PSV it's because he doesn't want to play the second game to [stay] clean for the rest of the competition. And Chelsea have [Michael] Essien suspended.
"We have a lot of players with two yellow cards and it will not surprise me if they will chase Drogba for 90 minutes to try and get him suspended for the second game. They are in a different level than us."
That level, Mourinho claimed, meant that Liverpool should now be considered favourites. "It is difficult to say but if you push me I think at this moment that Liverpool should be the favourite," he said.
"Our opponent has been preparing this game for a long, long time. And we are preparing this game since yesterday." It all added up in the Chelsea manager's mind to an unequal contest, with the Liverpool players, by his calculations, far fresher. "You think Steven [Gerrard] and [Frank] Lampard will have the same conditions to compete tomorrow? The conditions are different," he said.
The contest is also, of course, a re-run of the semi-final two years ago and Mourinho needed no invitation to discuss the Luis Garcia goal that settled the tie but did not cross the line.
"Two years ago we couldn't reach the final in two matches without goals," he said before offering praise to the Liverpool supporters implying they had influenced the officials into giving the goal. "They can be quite proud because in my history as a manager they are the only crowd I have seen score a goal," Mourinho said.
He claimed that Michael Ballack, who hurt his ankle in Sunday's league game against Newcastle United, will miss tonight's game and questioned whether Ricardo Carvalho, who has a tight hamstring, will be fit even though he took a full part in yesterday's training.
Benítez, meanwhile, said he felt the pressure was on Chelsea. "You could see that when we beat them [in 2005], how important it was for them," he said. "Also after two years winning the Premiership, normally you try to change priorities."
The Liverpool manager did not want to be drawn into criticism but added pointedly that Chelsea were "a very good team, with a lot of good players, very expensive players". As for that "ghost goal" by Garcia he had a simple reply. "I have a clear vision of this play," the Spaniard said. "Penalty and red card for goalkeeper. OK, we can talk about the goal, but penalty and red card, restart the game maybe 1-0."
It could be equally as tight again.
