You've blown it Jose

RAFA BENITEZ has seen Jose Mourinho and Chelsea blow their dream of a Premiership hat-trick.
Now he reckons his Liverpool glory boys will bring the Blues’ European assault to a similarly gut-churning conclusion.
The Special One rolls into Anfield tonight for the Champions League semi-final second leg with a 1-0 lead.
Yet Kop boss Benitez is convinced pressure from within the camp and the backing of the loudest stand in European football can leave Chelsea with just the FA Cup to play for.
The Spaniard has always insisted mind games hold no interest for him but he turned the heat back on Mourinho after the Stamford Bridge chief’s recent claims his side were on course for a mind-blowing Quadruple.
Benitez reckons Mourinho blew his side’s chances of becoming Premiership champs for the third successive year by resting too many players in the 2-2 draw with Bolton on Saturday.
That left the Blues, who have the Carling Cup in the bag, five points behind leaders Manchester United with three games to go.
Benitez said: “It has cost him the league title. It will be really difficult for Chelsea. They were talking about winning a lot of trophies one week ago but after Tuesday it could be a lot different.
“They know the pressure that they have now because their season comes down to this game.
“They understand the pressure they have. You can ask Roman Abramovich whether he wants the Champions League more than any other trophy.”
Benitez has barely broken from his usual, charming manner whenever the Portuguese has launched his verbal assaults.
The Anfield supremo has mastered the art of making his point without lowering himself to disrespectful, misguided blasts . . . like the endless ones which have been aimed in his own direction, you could say.
Yet a half-sentence here, a wry smile there and the odd Spanish phrase say far more than a book-load of Mourinho mockery ever could.
Take yesterday. On the face of it, nothing too dramatic.
But the outcome was exactly the same as if Benitez had chucked a dinner service at the wall and screamed his message through a megaphone.
He even threw in the odd bit of his native lingo to emphasise his point.
‘No ofende quien quiere sino quien puede’ may not have a literal English translation. At least, not according to the multi-lingual Kop supremo.
But, in a nutshell, that old one about sticks and stones is as close as it gets. Or in other words: ‘You’re wasting your breath if you think you can rattle me, Jose old son.’
And Benitez certainly did not miss with a few well-chosen, well-aimed barbs of his own. Take the Chelsea style of play, for example.
Many call it clinical, hard on the eye, but ruthlessly efficient.
Benitez said: “Last week they played maybe 45 long balls and perhaps 80 per cent were to Drogba.

By:PHIL THOMAS
Date:01 May 2007
Credit:www.thesun.co.uk