David Moyes rejected Jose Mourinho’s claim that Manchester United’s title hopes are effectively over after yesterday’s damaging defeat at Chelsea.
United are 14 points behind English Premier League leaders Arsenal after a 3-1 defeat by Mourinho’s title hopefuls.
Phil Jones backed off Samuel Eto’o, allowing the Cameroon international to score a deflected opener, and the attacker took advantage of shoddy marking from two set-pieces to complete his hat-trick on what was a sorry afternoon for the Red Devils.
United never looked like mounting a comeback from 3-0 down – as they did at Stamford Bridge two years ago – and Javier Hernandez’s 78th-minute goal was a consolation they barely deserved.
Mourinho said after the game that United’s rivals would have to suffer dramatic collapses for Moyes’s team to reclaim the title, but the Scot disagreed.
The Chelsea manager said: “It’s a 14-point difference. And 13. And 12. Can they recover to one of these teams? They can. But to recover to three of them, it needs three teams to have almost a collapse. For the title it will be difficult for them. What I hope to do is they beat all of them (Chelsea’s rivals) to finish top four and they beat all of them.”
But Moyes was defiant: “We won’t throw in the towel until we can’t get there,” the United manager said. “The job is to try and finish first. I will keep trying to do that. Before today we’d lost one in six in the league and I didn’t think there was a big difference between the teams today, not at all. The difference was our defending to set-pieces. Nothing else.”
Moyes always knew succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson, who enjoyed 26 years of success at Old Trafford, would not be easy. But he conceded the performances of his team has not been up to scratch so far. United looked ordinary at times. Mourinho’s men were more compact, they looked far more incisive on the attack and, unlike United, their defensive stability was never in doubt.
The table does not look pretty for Moyes. United sit in seventh, just one point ahead of Newcastle. They are six points adrift of the top four and that margin will increase by one more point if Everton beat West Brom tonight.
When it was put to Moyes that United were in crisis, the Scot disagreed: “That’s your opinion. Crisis is your word, not my word.”
Moyes admitted he knew he was embarking on a “massive challenge” when he took the giant step up from Everton to United last summer.
Some United supporters wanted the man who was in the home dugout to succeed Ferguson due to his experience on the biggest stage.
But Moyes still feels he is the man to turn things around.
When asked how his confidence was holding up following the latest defeat to a rival, Moyes said: “Fine. It’s a difficult task but (it’s about) perseverance and keeping doing what’s right. I thought we did a lot of good things today.
“We have players to come back and this is a project I know that I’m going to improve as it goes along.
“I was hoping to win more and be competing a bit more than we’ve been, but that’ll come.”
Mourinho insists it is not just a race between Arsenal, City and Chelsea.
“It’s not just three,” Mourinho said. “The distance is short. Six points from us to Liverpool. Six points to Tottenham.
“Tottenham are winning lots of matches, Liverpool, too, and scoring goals. Everton, if they win tomorrow (at West Brom), they jump into that.”