Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho says Manchester United’s chances of winning the Premier League title in the ongoing season have met waterloo, following Sunday’s 3-1 thrashing at Stamford Bridge.
Samuel Eto’O scored a hat-trick to ensure the ‘Blues’ maintained the pressure on the league leaders and increased his goal tally to six in the 3-1 home win.
Mourinho, whose first and 100th win as Chelsea manager have now come against the champions, also praised Eto’O for his goal area threat in the win, adding it was tough playing the Cameroonian ahead of Fernando Torres- but it paid off nevertheless.
The veteran striker scored twice in the first-half and completed his treble just after the break to leave Chelsea only two points behind Arsenal and a point shot of United’s neighbours, Manchester City.
Mourinho told BBC Sport after the match that: “It is hard (defending the league title), they are 14 points behind Arsenal, 13 behind Manchester City and 12 from us. Maybe one team collapses but for three to collapse is difficult, so for them I think it is the fight to finish in the top four.
“They will do that with their pride and tradition and fight and hopefully they win against the other contenders because now we do not play against them in the league.”
Eto’O was busy in and around the penalty area throughout the encounter. Meanwhile, the Portuguese boss believes his side was lucky to have gone into the interval with a 2-goal lead- as United got off blazing in the first-half-, he lauded his team for controlling the game in the final 45 minutes.
“I think it is a big win and deserved, yes. The way I was analysing the game it was hard for them to be losing 2-0 at half time. They started better than us, they had a good initiative.
“The second half was different. For 25-30 minutes we had very good control until we dropped back and they reacted with pride.
“I think this game was a bit of a contradiction to other games. Normally we produce and produce and then it is hard for us to score, this time with the first shot we scored. The second goal was the killer in the box I know from many years ago and it looks like Samuel Eto’o is coming back.
United were without top goal scorer Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie, nonetheless, substitute Javier Hernandez pulled a goal back in the 78th minute before their frustration boiled over as Nemanja Vidic got sent off for lunging in on Hazard, and Rafael was lucky to have avoided similar faith for a flying two left-footed tackle on Garry Cahill.
With every league meeting with the ‘Red Devils’ this season done and dusted and another three points already in the kitty, the ‘Special One’ was more concerned about his confident gamble on Eto’O, which paid off in style during his post-game spin.
“Fernando (one of the goalscorer in last week’s win at Hull City) is very dangerous with space, more powerful than Samuel, and I thought Manchester Untied were not coming to give me space, they came here to be compact,” Mourinho said to Sky Sport.
“I thought Samuel was someone with more technical abilities and more movement in small spaces. It was a difficult decision but my feeling was for this game Samuel was more adapted.”
