Mourinho insists Liverpool and Arsenal are not good enough
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Jose Mourinho insists Liverpool and Arsenal are not good enough - Chelsea, Manchester United or City will be champions
Plenty to say: Ex-Blues boss Mourinho
Jose Mourinho has dismissed the chances of Liverpool or Arsenal being crowned Barclays Premier League champions this season.
The former Chelsea boss is predicting a three-way battle between his old employers and Manchester rivals City and United.
The Blues sit top after two games with the Gunners, City and United just behind.
'I believe Chelsea, Man United and Man City, that's it,' Mourinho said.
Liverpool have just one point after crashing 3-0 at Eastlands on Monday night and Mourinho does not expect things to get much better for the Anfield outfit.
He said: 'It's very difficult for (new Liverpool manager) Roy Hodgson as over the last three years they have been getting worse, worse and worse. He needs time.'
'The Liverpool of 2004 was better than the Liverpool of 2005 and the 2005 [team] was better than 2006.
'It is very difficult for Roy to make Liverpool champions.I think he needs time and it’s not easy because I don’t think that the club went in the right direction and I don’t think Arsenal too.
'Year after year it looks like [success], but no, looks like, but no. Always the same type of comment, ‘it’s a young team’, ‘it will be next season’.
Not this time: Mourinho doesn't believe Arsenal will be celebrating in May'I remember when we [Chelsea] played them [Arsenal] in a Carling Cup semi-final when they played the ‘team of young boys’.
'The ‘team of young boys’ is not any more the team of young boys now, they are the team of 25, 26, 27-year-olds.
'So [Cesc] Fabregas, [Theo] Walcott, [Gael] Clichy, [Alex] Song, [Bacary] Sagna, they are not any more a team of young kids, they are a team in the age to win things.
'But I do not think they will do it. I think it will again be Man United, Chelsea and of course Man City, because they have a great squad.'
Real Madrid manager Mourinho admitted he was blown away by City's spending power this summer as Roberto Mancini beat the Spanish giants to the signing of Serbia full-back Aleksander Kolarov.
Kolarov joined City last month for £16million as part of another remarkable summer of team strengthening which has seen their Middle East owners splash out more than £120m.
And Mourinho, who joined Madrid after leading Inter Milan to a domestic and European treble last season, concedes even they can't compete.
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'I understand that if someone wants to compete with them for a player it is very difficult, they are dominant in the market,' he said.
'The player they say they want is the player they get. 'I was interested in Kolarov when I came here but I couldn't compete with them as they went to values that I couldn't.
'If they have the money they can do it, if they have the ambition to win the Premier League they can do it.'
Mourinho will keep a close eye on former Inter Milan striker Mario Balotelli's progress at Eastlands.
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The Italy striker left the San Siro in a £23m move and Mourinho said: 'I had some problem because he is a kid and because a coach always wants to educate a kid and always wants a kid to go in the right direction - it’s like at home with a son.
'Mario has incredible potential, he has every football quality to adapt to the Premiership, he has all the conditions to succeed, he’s a boy with a lot of potential.
'[Roberto] Mancini knows him very, very well, that’s why he bought him. Now it’s time for him to grow up as a person, more stability in his life, more stability in his private life and to understand, like I was teaching him every day, that a boy of 19, 20 years old has a lot to learn and that he is not the end product.
'If he goes in the right direction he can be a great success in English football. But it depends on him, the people that surround him and people that have to help him and not make his life more difficult.'