• Premier League

Half a billion reasons why Mourinho swipe is rich

As Jose Mourinho prepared for a potentially pivotal game in Chelsea's season at Manchester City, he could not stop himself from taking a swipe at tonight's opponents.

So far, so normal. The Portuguese enjoys trying to to get inside the heads of his rivals, but this particular swipe sounded just a little bit hypocritical.

It's all about the money

• Mourinho's spending, season by season
• Chelsea 04-05 - In: £56.9m Out: £11.7m
• Chelsea 05-06 - In: £93m Out: £20.8
• Chelsea 06-07 - In: £15.8 Out: £20.8m
• Inter 08-09 - In: £53.3 Out: £6.5m
• Inter 09-10 - In: £82.9m Out: £95m
• Real Madrid 10-11 - In: £78.3m Out: £8.8m
• Real Madrid 11-12 - In: £48.4 Out: £4.8m
• Real Madrid 12-13 - In: £29.5 Out: £29.5m
• Chelsea 13-14 - In: £108m Out: £57.6m
• TOTAL
• In: £566.1m
• Out: £255.5m
• Net spending: £310.6m

Mourinho's veiled suggestion was that the approach of City, as well as that of Monaco and PSG, to UEFA's new Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules was "dodgy".

He appeared to be putting pressure on European football's governing body to rein in the clubs who are still spending freely.

But it is fair to ask where Mourinho would be now if he had not had the extremely heavy backing of wealthy clubs over the last few years.

A talented coach, man-manager, tactician and politician no doubt, but a formidable spender, too. Since taking charge at Chelsea in 2004, the clubs Mourinho has managed have spent more than half a billion pounds on signing players. That's right, half a billion.

That is a pretty impressive total in nine seasons, averaging more than £50 million a year. This season alone he has spent more than £100m on new players.

Even taking into account the revenue of those clubs from player sales over the same period, Mourinho's net spending has still reached in excess of £300m.

To give that some sort of context, Everton have spent £121.8m in the same period on new players and brought in more money than they spent (£135.3m).

Even taking into account a margin for error on transfer fees - not all are fully disclosed - David Moyes and Roberto Martinez, who have managed the Goodison Park club in that time, would not have minded finding out what they could have achieved with Mourinho-esque resources.

His dig at Europe's big-spending clubs other than Chelsea appears to be just another self-interested ploy from this wiliest of managers to put pressure on UEFA.

Maybe Mourinho does not like the fact that Chelsea, in his opinion at least, have chosen to tackle FFP in a different way, but to attack the spending of other clubs is just a tiny bit rich.

Leo Spall is Deputy Editor of ESPN.co.uk

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd