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Football London
Football London
Sport
Lee Wilmot

Jose Mourinho can't resist little dig at old rival Rafael Benitez as he slams Chelsea defending

Former Chelsea and Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho could not resist having a little dig at his old adversary Rafael Benitez while making his Sky Sports punditry debut on Super Sunday.

Mourinho and Bentiez have enjoyed a running feud over the year since they have become involved in English football.

Both managers arrived on these shores in 2004, with Mourinho at Chelsea and Benitez at Liverpool.

Since then, they have had quite the feud, with snide remarks about each other's teams over those years.

Neither have a position in the Premier League anymore, with Benitez in the Chinese Super League and Mourinho working as a pundit.

And in the Sky Sports studio for the game between Manchester United and Chelsea, Mourinho could not resist a hilarious little dig at his old adversary when analysing the Blues' defending in the 4-0 humbling at the hands of United.

He said: "There are principles of play that have to be permanent. Let's laugh a little bit and remember Uncle Rafa. When he's on the touchline, he was always doing this [hand gesture]. What Rafa wanted to do was be compact and there were moments where we were looking and Chelsea without the ball had a block of six and another four.

"Tammy Abraham was staying up, [Ross] Barkley was staying up, [Mason] Mount was staying up, Pedro was staying up. Nowadays you look to the good teams and all the good teams defend compact. Higher block or lower block, the lower block is more defensive, the higher block more offensive, more aggressive, but always in the block.

"It's just a basic principle, you have to defend compact, and Chelsea were never that, so it was too easy for Man United.

"Chelsea were too soft, not compact defensively, too mush space to play, not enough aggression on the ball, distance between lines, they were never compact."

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