Unbelievable comments from Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho over the weekend when the Blues manager accused Premier League rivals Manchester United and Liverpool of trying to “buy the title”.
Both clubs have invested heavily this summer in a bid to challenge reigning champions Chelsea, with United adding five new players in the transfer window and Liverpool seven.
With both clubs spending in nearly £80m in rebuilding their squad, Chelsea have been uncharacteristically quiet, with the loan signing of Radamel Falcao the only notable business to date to occur at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues were accused of buying success when Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003, but Mourinho now says that it’s a model that everyone else is using.
“Basically you cannot say we have a lot of new players. We just made some adaptations in our squad to replace [Didier] Drogba and Petr Cech – we have Falcao and Begovic.
The squad is the same, other squads are not the same. They are buying some of the best players in the country. They are buying some of the best players in Europe. So other squads will be very strong.
So as people told me many many times in the beginning of Mr. Abramovich coming to Chelsea, Chelsea was buying the title,” he added.
“Now, all of them, they are buying the title, and it’s up to us to be strong and to fight them and obviously try to win the title again, even without the big investments.””
If Liverpool and United were trying to buy the title, they would simply be following the script developed by a certain Portuguese manager. Between 2004 and 2014, no manager in world football has spent more money that Mourinho during his spells with Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid. Mourinho spent nearly €1bn (£701m) over the 10 year period, €22m more than his closest rival Carlo Ancelotti who succeeded him at Real.
The irony of Mourinho’s comments is that both United an d Liverpool have still spent less in the transfer market that Mourinho did last summer!
The Red Devils have parted with almost £70m following the arrivals of Memphis Depay, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Morgan Schneiderlin and Matteo Darmian.
Liverpool have spent just under £80m bringing in Roberto Firmino (£29m), Joe Gomez (£3.5m), Adam Bogdan (free), Danny Ings (tribunal), James Milner (free), Nathaniel Clyne (£12.5m) and most recently Christian Benteke (£32.5m).
But in his first season back at Stamford Bridge the Special One spent £86.5million on Cesc Fabregas, Loic Remy, Filipe Luis and Diego Costa in last year’s summer transfer window before adding Juan Cuadrado for a further £26m in February.
