Serie A: Mourinho insists Serie A title is Inter's to lose

godtabh

Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho believes the only way his team will not win a fourth straight Scudetto is if they ''give it away''.

Mourinho's team beat AC Milan 2-1 last weekend, a result which, coupled with second-place Juventus' 1-1 draw against Sampdoria, pushed the league-leading Nerazzurri nine points clear of Juve.

''If we lose the Scudetto it will be because we have given it away,'' said Mourinho. ''Our destiny is in our hands.

''It's difficult to imagine that Milan and Juventus will win all of their remaining games.

''There is still some way to go as there are 14 games left to play.

''But our win against Milan has been very important for us not only because it has increased the gap but because it is a psychological blow for our Scudetto opponents.''

Inter travel to Bologna on Saturday having to do without suspended duo Cristian Chivu and Nicolas Burdisso.

Claudio Ranieri's Juventus take on Palermo in Sicily desperate to return to the winning ways. The Turin giants have won only once in their last four encounters and will face a challenge as Saturday's opponents have tasted victory in all of their games at La Favorita since November 15.

Milan entertain in-form Cagliari looking to put a disappointing week behind them.

Last weekend's defeat at Inter dented the Rossoneri's title ambitions as it left them 11 points behind the Nerazurri while Carlo Ancelotti's men failed to bounce back in midweek, having to settle for a 1-1 draw at Werder Bremen in the UEFA Cup.

Saturday, February 21, 2009
Time Home Away VENUE
15:00 UK Bologna v Internazionale Renato Dall'Ara
17:00 UK AS Roma v Siena Olimpico
19:30 UK Palermo v Juventus Renzo Barbera
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Time Home Away VENUE
14:00 UK Sampdoria v Atalanta Comunale Luigi Ferraris
14:00 UK AC Milan v Cagliari Giuseppe Meazza
14:00 UK Fiorentina v Chievo Verona Artemio Franchi
14:00 UK Napoli v Genoa San Paolo
14:00 UK Lecce v Lazio Stadio Via del Mare
14:00 UK Catania v Reggina Stadio Angelo Massimino
14:00 UK Torino v Udinese Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino

You can’t argue with him.

After last weeks win it puts is right there with few else seeming able to keep up.

One thing I would say is that Mourinho can be frustrating at times. They can attack and when they do they are unreal (42 goals in 24 games) but then they can sit back and let teams attack them. Doesn’t seem to matter as they have only let in 17 in 24 games. They are no Man Utd but they have the best defensive record in the league but last weekend’s game left a few nervous moments!

Trippie

Also I presume the refs in Europe are a little less biased towards them so that will make it more difficult than normal

dceire

It'll be a disaster if they don't win it at this stage!

Tristram

Sounds about right. Can't see them bottling it sadly

godtabh

Trippie wrote: »

Also I presume the refs in Europe are a little less biased towards them so that will make it more difficult than normal

I love it. My team is doing **** so I'll blame it on the fact that the team who have dominated over the last few years have the refs on their side. This applies in England, Spain and Italy

Great excuse tbh

Trippie

Not at all, i am the first to admit that Milan have been rubbish the last while and haven't deserved to win anything.

The only thing I would have a problem with in your reply there is the "team who have dominated" bit. I was trying to explain to a friend why Inter are not getting the credit they think they deserve over the last while and ended up in a big long winded answer that was very hard to understand. Im not sure if it was the last one or the second last of the football weekly's but the girl Amy Lawrence made a very good point. She said when she see's inter she see's a team that are at the top of the football world in Italy however she see's them as being there by default. They havent gotten there by becoming stronger than their rivals. Their rivals were extremely weakened which allowed them to come to the top. they are only there because of outside factors not because they improved to a proper level. The first was awarded in a court which was wrong imo. the second one was when all the competition were crippled, third one was only won with 40 minutes to go to the end of the season where it was always going to be a 2 horse race as the others were just not up to scratch and this year is about as good as you's have been however the team that has dominated is a slight overreach in my opinion.

Now onto my comment about the ref's I could go back on a weekly basis and back up my claims with evidence but i dont have the time and im not sure off the top of my head exactly which games to look at. Adriano's goal last week with his hand and Seedorf's disallowed one is one case that springs to mind. Now even if Inter hadn't of scored that goal I still said that they would have deserved to win.

Im going to go slightly off topic now but something that I have spoken a great deal about is the whole Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt thing. One is the Jamaican sprinter who everyone hopes is clean but says they wouldnt be surprised if they found out he was doping. However when asked about Phelps and his achievements he is just the next step in evolution. His natural talent and good work rate are the reason why he is at the top and people could swear blindly that he isn't using, that he would be stupid to do such a thing and that he knows better as he is the most tested/watched athlete there is. If the nationalities were to be switched or the sports they compete in switched I wonder would people's attitudes be the same. We all know American sprinters have doped so if phelps was a sprinter then it would be a lot easier to accept. However the fact is that doping in swimming is extremely widespread, just look at the chinese at the last olympics. Its not just the chinese though if i was to guess I would have said all the womens relay teams were using at the times they produced were epically quick. Phelps himself has broken some records and done things which people said were impossible. The fact that it took so long for anyone to get close to Spitz's records prove this. Now where am I going with this, if we were to take the decisions Inter have gotten and this isnt speculation, they have been given favorable decisions this season which are documented. If we were to take these decisions and apply them to the Juventus team around 2003,2004,2005 there would be mass hysteria over them. Moratti would be making wild accusations which we found out later on to be somewhat true and everyone knew that this was the case.

I really dont want to start going on about the scandal and how Inter have benefited anymore but the arrogance (and i dont like using that word) of the Inter fans and my best friend in my old job was a die hard Inter fan born and bred there and even he is big enough to admit that the they have the referee's in their pocket. It may be purely accidental as the ref's could be afraid to give the 50/50 decisions to the other teams as they dont want to be seen as being favorable to the likes of Juve and Mialn due to their past discrepancies and as a result they dont get the decisions where as the likes of Inter do these days. I read on the football italia website an article about what the table would look like if there was no iffy decisions from the refs. Inter were not the biggest winners from these decisions rather the smaller provincial tams were. Some of them had gotten more points than they should have and in the situations where they obtained these decisions it was in games against the likes of Fiorentina, Milan and Juventus. which means that they are missing out on points and it was Milan who had suffered the most although i expect that would have changed with fiorentina as they have been very unlucky the last while. Anyway as i said I dont want to get into this as i have already gone on for too long. I will reiterate though that if the decisions that have gone to Inter over the last 18 months or so had gone to Juventus a few years ago then I would say it would probably be you yourself who was up in arms complaining of them cheating as every other Inter fan I know did.

I also believe that collina has bee terrible in his new job and im surprised he wasnt looked into over the Juve Milan match where del piero did a bicycle kick on th side lines to set it up for trezeguet to score the only goal when milan had 2 clear penalties denied and there were reports that the Juventus directors had influenced the refereeing teams for this game in particular. I think that though he was just too big a name in the world of refereeing and the fact he was retired already meant that they let it slide as their reputation had suffered enough anyway I digress thats pretty much it

jamsieboy86

Another win for Inter. 2-1 over Bologna. It was almost a full strength side, Rivas and Cordoba were the two centre backs, they prob won't start against Man U. I'd imagine Materazzi and Chivu will be back for the CL match. Inter defended quite poorly at times, Julio Cesar kept them in it with 3 brilliant saves. A draw would've been a fair result but Inter held on for the win.

redout

Trippie wrote: »

The only thing I would have a problem with in your reply there is the "team who have dominated" bit. I was trying to explain to a friend why Inter are not getting the credit they think they deserve over the last while and ended up in a big long winded answer that was very hard to understand. Im not sure if it was the last one or the second last of the football weekly's but the girl Amy Lawrence made a very good point. She said when she see's inter she see's a team that are at the top of the football world in Italy however she see's them as being there by default. They havent gotten there by becoming stronger than their rivals. Their rivals were extremely weakened which allowed them to come to the top. they are only there because of outside factors not because they improved to a proper level. The first was awarded in a court which was wrong imo. the second one was when all the competition were crippled, third one was only won with 40 minutes to go to the end of the season where it was always going to be a 2 horse race as the others were just not up to scratch and this year is about as good as you's have been however the team that has dominated is a slight overreach in my opinion.

+1

Totally agree with the above and have said it on here before.

godtabh

jamsieboy86 wrote: »

Another win for Inter. 2-1 over Bologna. It was almost a full strength side, Rivas and Cordoba were the two centre backs, they prob won't start against Man U. I'd imagine Materazzi and Chivu will be back for the CL match. Inter defended quite poorly at times, Julio Cesar kept them in it with 3 brilliant saves. A draw would've been a fair result but Inter held on for the win.

Materazzi hasnt been first choice since the world cup.

I was at the Bolonga game before christmas. That was a great game (even my AC nut friend thought so up untill just before inter scored their third).

Think I'm gona book thickets for the last home game of the season