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In a press conference on Friday, Jose Mourinho lashed out at Luis Suarez for claims made in the player’s autobiography that an unidentified Chelsea player had expressed displeasure at Mourinho’s time-wasting tactics during the Liverpool-Chelsea encounter last season.
The two clubs face off in a high-profile Premier League match on Saturday, and this will be their first encounter since that fateful day when the title slipped out of Liverpool’s hands, who had been the unlikely league leaders since then.
When allegations of having followed game-killing tactics in that match were put to him, the Portuguese shrugged as dismissively as only he can, and replied: “Another book! Books...Do you read these books? I don’t.”
“At 51, I might have enough story to write one. But when you are 25? Do you write a book about when you were a kid?
“I don’t think I will [do a book]. I have an invitation to do a picture book, just with 100 photographs I’d choose of my career, and I’d just make a little comment on every picture. A memory book.”
“But not a book to tell s**t and to criticise people and to speak negative things about people who belong to my career.”
Mourinho, however, agreed with the Uruguay striker that it had been Steven Gerrard’s costly slip against Demba Ba in the last Liverpool – Chelsea match which eventually cost the Merseyside team the title.
The ABC of football
The question was put to him whether he agreed that the priority of his team’s footballing gameplan is to instill defensive discipline; this question too was waved off with a lengthy discourse on the nature of football.
“It’s difficult to win just by defending, but you never know. When we have the ball, our intention is to score goals.
“When Liverpool have the ball, we have to stop them scoring. Sometimes some people pretend to be clever or influence the opinion of others and say it’s not, but that is the ABC of football.”
Diego Costa to return
Jose Mourinho will bring back Diego Costa in place of Didier Drogba, despite the fact that Costa has been left out of Spain’s international squad because of a pelvic problem. The burly striker will not feature for his country’s matches against Belarus and Germany, supposedly to recover from persistent groin and hamstring problems.
He also expected that Liverpool will come into the match with their best squad, after resting several players in the midweek match away at Madrid.
“I expect a game where Liverpool know that, if they lose, they are 15 points behind [Chelsea]. If they are 15 points behind in November, obviously it’s not over for them but it’s difficult.”
Chelsea have a four-point advantage at the top of the table, and make the trip to Merseyside having been undefeated as of yet, and the gaffer made a optimistic appraisal of his team’s performance.
“As for us, we knew in the first 11 matches we would have to go to Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool, so we knew for sure we’d have the most difficult fixtures of every team.”
“When we leave Anfield, we will have left behind three of the most difficult stadiums to play in all season. The points we are getting against the other contenders – one here, one there, three here, three there – are important points.”
