Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has played more of his notorious mind games by declaring that Manchester City’s Champions League opponents Barcelona are as poor as they’ve been for many a season, BBC Sport reports.
City take on the Catalan giants this evening in the competition’s last 16, but Mourinho reckons they have a good chance of picking up a result.
“Of course by history Barcelona is the favourite, but this Barcelona, this season, is showing that it is not the same in previous years,” he told ITV.
“City have a chance,” he added.
There is no love lost between Barcelona and Mourinho, who has had plenty of public disputes with the Spanish champions while managing Chelsea first time around, Inter Milan and then Real Madrid before he rejoined Chelsea this summer.
While the Portuguese manager admitted the brilliance of Lionel Messi, he made a scathing comment on the quality of Tata Martino’s current outfit.
“Of course, they have Messi – he is special – and they have more than him. But I think this is the worst Barcelona of many, many years.”
Barcelona do currently sit jointly at the top of La Liga table, but have still lost some of their fear factor following the 7-0 aggregate humiliation handed out by Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-finals last season.
City though, have never got out of the Champions League group stages before, and are the underdogs for the tie.