JOSE MOURINHO: WE CAN CATCH ARSENAL

Mourinho: We can catch Arsenal easily

Jose Mourinho believes Manchester City are favourites for the title, and that Chelsea can easily catch Arsenal at the top of the Premier League.

The Blues boss highlighted City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United as the teams who, along with his own, will be in the title picture come the end of the season. League leaders Arsenal are currently four points clear at the top of the table, with Chelsea in second, while champions United lie eighth and Spurs ninth.

Mourinho refused to rule either side out of the hunt, but does think there is more pressure on City, given their abundance of
talent.
"I don't think that we can talk about
favourites, but we can say that there is one team at the top of the league," he said.
"All of the six teams are title contenders, but I keep saying the club with the most pressure to win it, because their squad is quite unique, is Manchester City.
"City don't have old players, they don't have varying players. You see all of them, players with big maturity, players with big experience.
"Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko, Alvaro
Negredo, even Stevan Jovetic, these are the four strikers. And I say "even Jovetic" because he's injured. If he's not, I put him in the same level where they are.
"You go to other positions; you see Yaya Toure, Fernandinho, nobody more than 30, nobody below 23. The squad is absolutely amazing.

"They have solutions and solutions and solutions. So if you ask me which team I think is the team with more ammunition I have to try to be honest. I have to apologise to the others in case they are not happy with what I say, but my opinion is City are the team with more ammunition. "

'Manchester United are nine points
behind Arsenal. It's a gap. Nine points is a gap. Tottenham 10. That's a gap. It's not a gap for us. For us, it's something that, in two matches, is over.'

Chelsea face a trio of the Premier
League's bottom five clubs in their next three games - starting away against Gus Poyet's Sunderland, who they also face in the Capital One Cup quarter-finals later this month - but Mourinho is not taking
anything for granted.

"I was analysing their match against
Newcastle at home and Man City at
home. These were the matches I focused on," the Portuguese said.
"I think they are better than the points they have. The quality of their players is not comparable with some teams in that part of the table, but I think they are in a
moment where one point doesn't make a big difference.

"They need three points. They need two or three victories to get out of the dangerous area. I don't think they can play in a defensive way. That is why they have a positive approach - because they
need to win matches.
"I think Gustavo's style is to try and play good football. I think we have two very difficult matches."

Mourinho is also keen not to read too much into his club's away form with just two league wins on the road so far this season. The Blues remain unbeaten at home, but
Mourinho has set a points target away from Stamford Bridge which keeps the pressure down.

"I took pressure off of me when I told you before the West Ham game that we had to try, in the next five matches away, to get more points than in the first five,"
he added.
"In the first five away games (of the
season) we had five points. Now we have three after one of the next five. So if we win won, we'll have done better than we'd done before."