Sport

Little horse beats big horse: ‘Lucky’ Manchester City’s perfect home league record quashed by Chelsea

By Alex Lanigan

And to think Jose Mourinho had been complaining of Manchester City’s good fortune this season.

After his Chelsea side destroyed their title rival’s perfect home league record last night, his beaten counterpart Manuel Pellegrini was the one bemoaning bad luck. 

A first-half Branislav Ivanovic strike ended the Blues 21-game unbeaten run in all competitions and Chelsea were the first team to stop Pellegrini’s side from scoring at the Etihad in 62 fixtures in their 1-0 victory.  

“We lost today against a good team who played well and I thought we deserved at least a draw but they had the luck to win it,” said Pellegrini.

The Chilean believes injuries to a number of key players in City’s multi-million pound squad gave the advantage to Chelsea.

“Well I think that of course Fernandinho is an important player for us,” he added.

“Not only him, you have to add Aguero, Nasri and Javi Garcia – Milner was not 100% so he couldn’t start, Alvaro Negredo wasn’t 100% either.

“That’s too much of an advantage for an important team like Chelsea.”

Portuguese Mourinho continued to maintain his stance that the Stamford Bridge side will be better poised to win the title next season but felt his team deserved to win the game. 

“’There are two horses and a little horse – a little horse that still needs milk and work and to learn how to jump. There are two big horses and the last horse, a horse that next season can race,” said Mourinho.

“We have beaten the best team twice. In the first game we won because Fernando was bright, today we won because we were the best team.”

Image courtesy of MCFC via YouTube, with thanks.

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