It's not about horses, it's about horsepower

It's getting a bit hard to follow all the metaphors.

First we had eggs.  Not cheap eggs, but the high grade ones.  But they were not ready and had to be nurtured.  Then, on Monday, the eggs hatched into little horsies.  The little horsies who were in no shape to compete with the two big horses.  But then on Saturday, one of the big horses was beaten, repeatedly and without mercy by Liverpool, while the other big horse stumbled at the sight of some Canaries.  Meanwhile, the little horsie that could suddenly found itself on top of the mountain.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Yes, we can.

Of course none of this fits into the narrative that José's trying to sell to the media.  Ryan Bertrand must have left his alarm bells at the Bridge; you could almost see them going off in Mourinho's head.  Bee-do, bee-do, bee-do. Time for narrative damage control.  Kill all the horses!

"It's time to kill [talk of] the horses."

"Manchester City is a Jaguar. You cannot put an 'L' plate on a Jaguar."

-Jose Mourinho; source: BBC

Jaaaaaag...  We still haven't mastered the art of getting out tightly and highly congested parking lots.  And don't even get me started on the no shuffling allowed business on the parallel parking test.

So back to putting pressure on City*.  Who are probably still favorites, although they seem entirely lost without Fernandinho and Sergio Aguero.  Then again, I'm sure our prospects would flag a bit without Nemanja Matic and Eden Hazard.

* There's clearly no need to put pressure (anymore) on Arsenal.

Mourinho's insistence of playing a page out of Mancini's title talk playbook does seem at odds with all the positive and confident words coming from the Chelsea players.  So here's the Daily Mirror connecting the dots and coming up with a rather plausible theory.

"Jose told the players before the West Ham game that they would hear him talk down their title chances."

"He told them to pay no attention because his intention was to take the pressure off the team and put others under the microscope."

"He also told the players that he believes they will be champions this season."

-Anonymous "senior" insider; source: Mirror

Whether Bob the Senior Janitor actually overheard any of this is up for debate, but I have no doubt that Mourinho isn't motivating the locker room with talk of little horsies and played-down expectations.  If there's one common identity to all of José's teams, it is the ingrained mentality of winning.

Even though Saturday's performance was always going to be a letdown from Monday night, the hat trick of goals from Eden Hazard meant that we made comfortable work of the task at hand despite showing "not the best example" of just how well we can play.

So, onwards and upwards.  Saddle up the horses.  Slap on that twin-turbo.  Keep the revs in the powerband.  Next stop, Title Town!