Jose Mourinho says he believes David Moyes is responsible for Chelsea's pursuit of Manchester United's Wayne Rooney for hinting the striker is second choice at Old Trafford.
Chelsea, who yesterday confirmed the signing of Willian for £30m from Anzhi Makhachkala, subject to a work permit, will return with a third bid for Rooney after tonight's Barclays Premier League meeting between the sides, despite being told the striker is not for sale.
It was put to Mourinho that he will not be the most popular man at the Manchester stadium.
"Why? They are against me?" said Mourinho. "I didn't say [to Rooney] you will be a second choice for me. We are trying to get a player that the manager told 'you will be a second option'. We are not going for [Robin]van Persie.
"They don't have to be against me. If I say Ramires is a second option for me and he plays when [Frank]Lampard is tired or injured, if somebody comes here to get Ramires, nobody is upset."
Asked if it is Moyes who is culpable for the Rooney situation, Mourinho said "Of course", referring to comments on Manchester United's pre-season tour, when Moyes, intentionally or not, suggested Rooney was a secondary option to Van Persie, remarks which led to claims the England striker was unhappy.
Mourinho added: "In every big team - I am not criticising - you have first options and second options, and the second options, they must be very good players. That's why we are buying another good player [Willian] who will be in the same area of [Juan] Mata and Oscar and [Eden] Hazard and so on. Of course big teams must have second choices. Big players too.
"The point is if the players are happy to accept that situation or the players are not happy. A big club manager, of course we want to keep players in the squad because during the season we're going to need them."
Mourinho said he feels that Rooney's status is down to the strength of United's options.
"It means they have a fantastic squad," he added. "I was playing against them last year. He was on the bench and he [Sir Alex Ferguson, then United manager] was playing Van Persie, [Danny] Welbeck, [Shinji] Kagawa. The squad is amazing. So it is natural that some players have to be second choice."
Some say the pursuit of Rooney is a win, win situation for Mourinho and Chelsea - United are destabilised if he stays and weakened if he leaves.
Mourinho said: "If we want to upset them as some people were saying, we'd be making a bid for the player every day - before the match. Now we are quiet, we have no contact. Our objective is to try to get a player we think is a good addition for us."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article