Jose Mourinho accuses Manchester City of overspending

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho continued his war of words with Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini by insisting he is wrong to suggest that Chelsea are the Premier League’s big spenders.

Pellegrini is feeling the pressure of Chelsea’s title challenge after responding to Mourinho’s claims that his side are not one of the favourites for the championship.

The City manager insisted that Chelsea were the biggest spenders in the January transfer window having bought Nemanja Matic (£21m), Mohamed Salah (£15m) and Kurt Zouma (£12m), while also paying the biggest amount since owner Roman Abramovich bought the club.

Mourinho briefly listed off the ins and outs at the club over January, but seemed to forget about signing Kurt Zouma from St Etienne.

Speaking about Pellegrini’s outburst, he said: “Everyone knows what Manchester City is. Pellegrini was doing some comments about the money we spent.

“I think he’s a fantastic coach and I respect that a lot. On top of that outside his football career, he’s an engineer and I don’t think an engineer needs a calculator.

“(Chelsea sold) (Juan) Mata £37m more or less, (Kevin) de Bruyne £18m, that is £55m…Matic is 21 and Salah is 11 so that is £32m. 55 – 32 is 23. Chelsea in this window (makes) £23m plus.

“It is easy to understand that this is to work with the Financial Fair Play, what I call fair Financial Fair Play. There are no arguments against that.

“This is what we’re doing, others will do the same. We are building the team for the next decade if possible and they have a team to win now.

“They don’t have a team for 10 years, for now. Experience, potential, power, not worried about Financial Fair Play because in the summer they just spend. We don’t need a calculator for this, it’s easy – plus 23.”