Jase

On one hand, it is probably mind game and his intentions were clearly to take the pressure off the team and heap it onto City. He would be telling the players the opposite thing. But of course, this could have gone either way. If we are in a strong position to win the title like Liverpool now, people would be praising him for doing that but since we are not, people are obviously slam him for saying such things (and some have probably enjoyed it). Hindsight is a wonderful thing, eh? On the other hand, was it even wrong of Mourinho to say what he did in the media? The issues with this team are clear and any blind fella can even see it themselves but people, more often than not, like to call it mind games, criticize Mourinho etc for saying it because he's Mourinho

And then we saw that 'ghost' penalty given yesterday.. Mourinho's congratulatory comment after this game couldn't be anymore apt when you see such abysmal officiating from the referee and linesman!

We might not win the title but we can at least help City to win it if we do that next week though am not too confident. Never mind the current form of both teams now and the fact it will be tough to play at Anfield to begin with, Mourinho may well now throw all eggs into one basket and focus on the Champions League and toss away the league, like we did under RDM two seasons ago.

Did anyone see that Sakho challenge on Snodgrass late on in the Norwich-Liverpool game earlier? How that wasn't a foul is beyond me and that is almost like a further indication that the FA, referees etc are helping Liverpool to win the title. Every, EVERY, refereeing decisions are going their way, whether it's in their game or us or City!

I'm sure he would have told the players not to believe what he says in the media. His message would be completely different in the dressing room. If the players are so easily 'persuaded' mentally to believe what Mourinho says in the media, then it's no wonder that we are struggling out on the pitch in the last month or so.

True but TBF, that wasn't the case when Mata was still around under Mourinho. Was given a role with responsibilites (especially defensively) but still able to create chances. It's just that comparing him with our other AMs, he can give us that X-factor and create something from nothing for others (apart from Hazard) in final third. Not talking just about playing those through balls, 1-2s with the others but also chances like ball over the top of the opposition's defence when they are parking the bus/defending in numbers in front of us (e.g. Ba's FA Cup goal against United, Torres' league goal against Swansea two seasons ago) and it's these kind of chances at times, this kind of ingenuity, that is missing from our play when the opposition are being stubborn against us.

Well duh. It's not like Liverpool weren't aided with a deflection and a long range strike.....

Agree but his decision making and execution at times can really be frustrating

Get what you're saying but if we only setup to be on the defensive and play on the counter, we will lose. Need to show more positive intention than say we did against Galatasaray, PSG and even Basel.

Not character but balls. Lots of them.

And missing Ivanovic for such games is not exactly ideal either..

This is a bit worrying... Atletico are pretty decent at set pieces. Gotta be strong and physical in defending against them.

THAT and I'm also questioning, why wasn't there anyone defending on the edge of our penalty box when Sunderland took that corner which led to the goal? Alonso had acres of space and time to get the shot going. Also, why did we suddenly let ourselves being pushed back after we went 1-0 up? We were so dominant till then and out of nowhere, we allowed them to get into the game when we shouldn't!

I believe the UEFA rules state that managers have obligations to do their media duty - press conferences, interviews etc - though he may not say a lot especially when it's the media that he hates most in attendance on Monday.. I don't think the record puts pressure on us to begin with but at least it will stop people from posting about it. Have seen it getting mentioned non-stop every time before home games on Twitter, match previews etc. It was rather annoying.

What a boring response Billy..

Think that may depend on what Mike Dean write in his match report.

Azpi hasn't played at RB for awhile now but he's a RB by trade and knows the position well enough. You do not want to create an unneccesary weakness in our back 4 by playing Cole in a FB position that he's totally alien with.

Would be interesting to hear what Mourinho has to say in the pre-Atletico presser on Monday...

Make up your mind people!

As much as Mike Dean was atrocious with his decisions, we really shouldn't or wouldn't be sitting down here and talking about referees screwing us (again) had we not made horrendous errors for Wickham's goal and took our chances.

Surely his eye sight would have caught that incident, even just a tiny bit especially when Larsson just went down suddenly.

Look on the bright side though, at least it was to Sunderland and not United, Liverpool, Arsenal or Spurs. Can't even begin to imagine what 'trash' will be spoken had they ended Mourinho's unbeaten home record instead. And TBF, we should have lost the record against West Brom in November anyway. What goes around comes around I guess...

Don't think a 0-0 would be ideal here given it's against a team like Atletico and even though we are at home for the second leg. Must/Need to get a score draw at the very least IMO.

Hope you meant to put Azpi at RB and Cole at LB.....