Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has sympathy for his Manchester City counterpart Manuel Pellegrini, who is under pressure for his failure to defend the Premier League trophy.
“I’m not surprised because it can happen to anyone,”
Mourinho said of City’s recent dip in form, which has seen them win only two of their last six games, losing the other four to slide down to fourth in the table.
He insisted that the criticism is what surprises him because City are “a team that won two titles in three years, a team that are still champions and won two trophies last season.”
“It looks like they don’t deserve respect,” he said. “That they are bad players, that the manager is a bad manager, that they are a disaster. And they are the champions. I don’t understand.
“So how can you be so negative with a team that’s won two titles in three years? Okay, they won’t win this title this year, but they did last year.”Some clubs and managers cannot win and life goes on, but the guys at Man City -it looks like they’re criminals because they don’t win the league.
“I feel it’s amazing. It doesn’t matter the problems. You are the champions and people are already pushing you. It’s a big contradiction.
“For me, the difficulty of every game is amazing. In the last nine matches, we never won by two goals difference. The last time we won by more than one goal was Swansea (5-0) in January.
“If there are two people pushing for the title, you are the man if you win it and you lose? You want five, six, seven teams to fight for the title, only one can win the title.
“City are fourth in the table, currently in the final Champions League qualification spot,but with Liverpool only four points behind and Manchester United four ahead.
They face West Ham at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.