MADRID. — Jose Mourinho is prepared to hand the Barclays English Premier League soccer title to Liverpool on Sunday by playing a second-string side to save Chelsea’s Champions League dream.
Chelsea trail leaders Liverpool by five points with three games to go in the Premier League and Mourinho said he would name a weakened side should he be given permission by his superiors at the club.

With Petr Cech out for the season and John Terry set to miss next week’s second leg after being injured in Tuesday night’s 0-0 draw with Atletico, Mourinho said he will talk to the board about playing fringe players at Anfield.

“My priority is the Champions League,” the Portuguese said. “I would play the players who are not playing next Wednesday. I work for Chelsea, the board and I have to follow what my club decide. I am just the manager. I have to listen to the club.

Mourinho also launched an attack on the Premier League’s decision makers for forcing his side to play on Sunday, just four days before the return leg.

“The fact that the match is on Sunday is the problem. We represent English football. We are the only English team who are in European competition. Spain has four and gave them the conditions to try to have success. But we are playing on Sunday, not Saturday or Friday.”

Mourinho went on to challenge Chelsea to play the game of their lives in the second leg after a dramatic draw in the Vicente Calderon.

The Chelsea manager confirmed Cech will miss the rest of the season with a dislocated shoulder and captain Terry will only be fit if they reach the final.

Chelsea will be without Frank Lampard and John Mikel Obi after they picked up second yellow cards.

Mourinho said: “Cech’s season is over. We will have to reach the final for John to play. This result is everything. We had problems before the game, we had problems during the game.

“We lost four during the game but we will fight.

“Branislav Ivanovic is back and Mark Schwarzer showed clearly that we can trust him. We had people who don’t play a lot, people like Ashley Cole… it was an amazing performance. If we have to play the kids next week we have to play the kids.

“We were speaking before about the game of their life, now the game of their life is at Stamford Bridge.

“Many years ago Chelsea started building a team with great characters and great personalities. In football you can use the word ‘heritage’ — you can have that in football and the people see the example and they smell that heritage and it goes on and on.”

Mourinho refused to respond to a comment from West Ham owner David Sullivan’s son after he sarcastically tweeted about Chelsea’s “19th century football”.

Mourinho added: “You don’t want the manager of Chelsea to respond to the opinion of the son of the owner of another club.”

Mourinho set out with a very defensive looking line-up at the Calderon as Ramires and Willian played wide to prevent Atletico’s full-backs rampaging forward, whilst Mikel and David Luiz added extra muscle in midfield. — Mailonline.

 

You Might Also Like

Comments

Take our Survey

We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey