Mourinho slams Sky Sports' coverage of Chelsea: If you call Diego Costa's actions against Liverpool a crime, then Barnes committed a criminal tackle

 

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No way: Mourinho was left fuming with the standard of refereeing on Saturday
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James Benge22 February 2015

Jose Mourinho lambasted Sky Sports for their treatment of his Chelsea side during his appearance on Goals on Sunday.

Referring to the second leg of the League Cup semi-final, when Sky Sports had shown a series of clips of Diego Costa’s fouls captioned “Costa crimes”, Mourinho accused the channel of lacking impartiality.

The manager said: "When I finished the game against Liverpool I went to the dressing room and I was reading non-stop about Diego Costa's crimes. I would like to know how do you, Sky Sports, describe the actions of a Burnley player yesterday? My English is not good enough to find an adjective to qualify. I don't find a word to describe.”

He described Ashley Barnes’ challenge on Nemanja Matic as a “career-ender”. The Burnley forward’s tackle hit the Chelsea player hard on the shin with a challenge in which the Serbian was lucky to avoid serious injury. Matic received a straight red card for pushing Barnes in response.

However Mourinho called on Sky to label the tackle as criminal, saying: "Football is about emotions and clearly Nemanja Matic had a reason to lose his emotions. What are the consequences of his push, nothing. The consequence for Matic from the tackle? It could be the end of his career. A criminal tackle.

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"If you call Diego Costa's actions against Liverpool a crime, the minimum you have to say is this is a criminal tackle. As an institution Sky did not apologise to Chelsea, to Costa, or to me.”

Chelsea v Burnley - player ratings

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The Chelsea manager continued his criticism of recent refereeing performances, particularly focusing on Martin Atkinson, who took charge of yesterday’s 1-1 draw at home to Burnley.

He said the referee had been consistently making mistakes, telling Shephard and Chris Kamara: "The best players in the world make mistakes. This gentleman [Martin Atkinson] is one of the top referees in European football, he can also make mistakes. He clearly made four important mistakes yesterday. He is like the lawyer who is consistent because he lost 15 of 15 cases. You don't want that lawyer.

"I am risking my place in the dugout for the [League Cup] final by having this discussion. I cannot go too far. But the reality is that week after week we are having these decisions [against us].

"Football is football, but I think it is too much. I think my players don't deserve that. Yesterday I was calm in the press conference but my players are not getting the respect they deserve."

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