Jose Mourinho does so very much love to stir the pot, doesn’t he?
The former Chelsea and Manchester United manager felt the need to respond to Pep Guardiola’s comments about having won twice as many Premier League titles as the infamous head coach.
The Manchester City boss had been asked whether his six-finger salute, during a 2-0 defeat to Liverpool, represented the beginning of the end in a not-so-dissimilar fashion to the Portuguese’ coach’s three-finger salute back in 2018.
“I hope not in my case… he won three, I won six… but we are the same like that,” the Spaniard told the press (via Sky Sports).
Jose Mourinho sends Pep Guardiola message
Mourinho evidently took offence to Guardiola’s suggestion of similarity, referencing Manchester City’s alleged financial breaches of Premier League financial rules (now numbering at 129).
Fabrizio Romano relayed the Fenerbahce boss’ comments on X (formerly Twitter), with the 61-year-old insinuating that his City counterpart had not won his league titles fairly or cleanly.
We’ll know for sure on that front in February when the outcome of the hearing into the Sky Blues’ dealings between 2009-2018 is expected to be released (The Independent).
José Mourinho: “Pep Guardiola said something to me yesterday… he won six trophies and I won three, but I won fairly and cleanly”.
“I don’t want to win by dealing with 150 lawsuits”.
“If I lost, I want to congratulate my opponent”, says — via @MailSport. pic.twitter.com/kvW5j0DURl
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) December 6, 2024
Mourinho may be forgetting about Roman Abramovich
To be completely fair to Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering Manchester City outfit, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea was hardly as clean as a whistle.
Yes, the Blues don’t have over 115 charges hanging over their heads from the Russian’s ownership of the West London-based outfit.
However, to suggest that Chelsea didn’t benefit from a financial advantage compared to their opponents (albeit with the help of a superb manager in the Portuguese) would be disingenuous.
Data from Transfermarkt (via Planet Football) notes that the club spent £2.1bn on transfer fees between 2003-2022 (with Roman Abramovich leaving Chelsea in May 2022).
So there’s perhaps a slight tint of hypocrisy running through Mourinho’s recent comments about his City counterpart.
