Jose Mourinho has claimed Manchester City’s “unique” squad has placed greater pressure on them to secure the Premier League title. The Chelsea manager is concerned that City might yet seek to bypass the new financial fair-play regulations and spend lavishly in the transfer window.

Chelsea’s outlay on six players in the summer approached €78.4m, a figure eclipsed at the Etihad Stadium where almost €120.6m was spent. Yet, while Chelsea believe they are on track to adhere to Uefa’s FFP policy and do not anticipate adding to their options in January, they are concerned a rival title contender might sanction a massive outlay which could, potentially, flout the regulations.

Mourinho is far from deceived by the 2012 champions' underwhelming away form. "The team with more responsibilities to win the title, because their squad is quite unique, is Manchester City," Mourinho said. "I mean the quality and profile of the players, the experience of the players, and the average age. They don't have old players or very young players.

'Maturity and experience'
"You see all of them, players with big maturity and experience: Aguero, Dzeko, Negredo, even Jovetic . . . These are their four strikers but go through the positions and you see Toure, Fernandinho . . . nobody more than 30, nobody below 23. The squad is amazing.

“They have solutions and solutions and solutions. If you ask me which team has more ammunition, I have to be honest. I have to apologise to the other four in case they’re not happy with what I say but City are the team with more ammunition. They are a team able to make a run of victories.”

Mourinho was asked whether January offered the temptation to buy a game-changer. His own club spent over £70m signing Fernando Torres and David Luiz a little under three years ago, before Uefa's policy came into operation. "I hope financial fair play is for everybody and not just for some," he said, "because we care about financial fair play. We look at it, we respect it, we prepare ourselves for the future based on financial fair play coming into action. January is a period where we will see whether it is or is not [being implemented]."
Guardian Service