Jose Mourinho has leaped to the defense of Chelsea and Conte, who he recently had a war of words with.
The Portuguese manager hit out at the Italian for his match fixing scandal in Juventus, and the Chelsea manager responded by calling him a little man.
However, following Chelsea’s loss to City, the London outfit has come under heavy criticism and Mourinho has defended his former club.
“Honestly, I know what you are writing as a consequence of yesterday,” Mourinho told reporters at Selhurst Park, 24 hours after Conte’s side came under fire for their defensive approach in a 1-0 defeat at runaway Premier League leaders Manchester City.
“But Chelsea is a fantastic team and, I know it looks a bit strange because you know we had problems in the past, but it’s quite ridiculous that I have to say how unfair it is to speak the way people are speaking about the English champion.
They are still the English champion. Chelsea was strong against us. They started very strong and created difficulty in that initial part of the game.
“And tonight [Monday] I think Roy [Hodgson, Palace manager] was strong. We were expecting [Jairo] Riedewald in defensive midfield and [Alexander] Sorloth out left, but he came with a 4-4-2, two aggressive strikers together, strong in the air then dropping back to defend.
“Roy was very good. I don’t even want to blame my players and say the start was not good.
“The start was not good because they [Palace] were good and matches like this [going behind early], it’s only possible if the two teams are good.”
