Chelsea’s hopes of advancing in the UEFA Champions League rest on their performance Wednesday against visiting Paris Saint-Germain, a side they drew 1-1 in France last month.
Speaking ahead of the second leg, Blues manager, Jose Mourinho, was very critical of PSG’s physical play, calling the French side something akin to a lower league English side.
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Is that an insult, or a compliment? Most certainly the former.
From the BBC:“This season we have played teams from the Championship, League One and League Two, but the most aggressive team was PSG. For a team with so much quality I expected more football,” Mourinho said.
“I thought a team from England would never be surprised by aggression, because aggression is in our country.
“A team with fantastic players was the team making foul after the foul. [PSG] were the team that stopped Eden Hazard with fouls all the time, the team that was attacking the man in possession of the ball with two or three players very aggressively.
“If to dominate is the number of chances created, yes Paris had more chances than us. If dominating means stopping your opponent from playing, making foul after foul, yes they also dominated.”
This was around the time last season where Mourinho lost the plot with his mind games, and there seems little reason to make this media move. Regardless of PSG’s style of play, the referees won’t balk because Mourinho doesn’t like physical play, right? Right?