Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho went on the attack on Sunday as he went on Sky Sports and attacked Premier League referees for what he sees as their season long bias against his club.
This was vintage Mourinho. In a week where he saw his side twice be able to hold onto one goal leads, and with a League Cup Final next weekend against rivals Tottenham Hotspur, Mourinho did what he does best. He took all the attention of his underperforming players, and put it on himself.
The Engish media will spend most of the next week on Mourinho’s comments, giving his players a free pass ahead of their Wembley trip. Whether Mourinho will be on the touchline at Wembley is undecided as the FA will surely take a dim view of his comments on Sky’s Goals on Sunday program.
Talking to hosts Ben Shepherd and Chris Kamara, Mourinho launched a scathing attack on Burnley’s Ashley Barnes, suggesting the Burnley forward’s challenge on Matic was a “criminal tackle” that deserved a six-match ban.
He said referee Martin Atkinson made four mistakes during the Burnley game, failing to give red cards to Barnes twice and turning down two penalty appeals from Chelsea.
“At half-time, Burnley should be playing with 10 men and Chelsea should have two penalties,” he said. “Normally, we win 3-0 or let’s put in the possibility of missing one of the penalties — we win 2-0 and play against 10 men. The reality is that in the end, we play with 10 men and lost two points.”
He attacked his hosts Sky for describing Diego Costa’s disciplinary problems as ‘crimes’, and for failing to apologise for highlighting the Chelsea striker’s stamp on Liverpool’s Emre Can which earned Costa a three-match ban.
“When I finished at the game against Liverpool, I went to the dressing room and the first thing I saw on the big screen, reading non-stop — ‘Diego Costa crimes.’
“I would like to know how do you, Sky Sports, describe the actions of the Burnley player yesterday? My English is not good enough to find a word. When you think ‘Diego crimes’ after he puts his boot on a hand, when this is ‘Diego crimes,’ the minimum you have to say is ‘criminal tackle.’
“Did you apologise to Chelsea, to Diego or myself? You didn’t. As an institution, Sky is so important in the Premier League, you never apologise. When Diego Costa has a three-match ban, probably three matches to Matic… tell me how many matches this player deserves?”
He claimed that Chelsea should be 12 points clear of Manchester City rather than the actual lead of five points if referee’s decisions had gone in their favour in games against Southampton, Tottenham and Burnley.
“I’m just trying to be honest. If you ask me about the five-points difference [over second-placed Manchester City] I would say that if we are in a normal situation where mistakes which are part of the game are sometimes in our favour, sometimes against us, it wouldn’t be five, it would be 12.”
It has been an incredible week at Chelsea FC from the problems on and off the pitch in Paris to the bad referring decisions on Saturday and then Mourinho’s 27 minute rant on TV Sunday.
What will the FA do with Mourinho? What makes Mourinho’s rant all the more extraordinary was that he was fined £25,000 and warned as to his future conduct less than a month ago after his claims in December that there was an orchestrated campaign aimed at destabilising Chelsea
What will the FA do with Mourinho?
