Mourinho: I lashed out at Poll to cleanse my soul

The Premiership title gone, the guard of honour formed but Jose Mourinho was in no mood last night for reconciliation as he angrily denounced both the referee Graham Poll and the league planners - while dismissing Michael Ballack's chances of being able to play in the FA Cup Final.

The Chelsea manager turned his fury on officialdom after a tetchy goalless draw against the new champions Manchester United at Stamford Bridge. At one stage it appeared that Mourinho had been sent to the stands by Poll after he angrily confronted the referee when Claude Makelele was penalised for a challenge, although it later transpired that he had not been dismissed.

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"Nothing special," Mourinho said when asked why he was so incensed. "I just think he [Poll] was what he is always, a normal performance when he is refereeing a Chelsea match. Nothing special. I just cleansed my soul a little bit."

There is history between the two - most recently when Poll dismissed John Terry during last November's defeat to Tottenham Hotspur. "With Mr Poll in Chelsea matches there are so many incidents. I cannot choose one to tell," Mourinho said. "I just say he is a referee Chelsea has no luck with. If we can have another referee we are happy. We don't like to have Mr Poll."

Poll cautioned seven players - four from United and three from Chelsea - with John Obi Mikel and Chris Eagles fortunate not to be red-carded for reckless tackles. "Mikel was lucky to be on the pitch. It was a bad tackle," the United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, said. "It was hard to handle for the referee but it showed the competition between the two teams. We were denied a penalty. It was a clear penalty and would have taken their home record off them." That was in reference to a challenge by Michael Essien on Eagles. If United had won, it would have ended a sequence of 62 Chelsea home league games without defeat - which equals Liverpool's record.

Mourinho, however, was more concerned about the changes in the fixture list with this encounter originally having been scheduled for mid-April - when his team were just three points behind United. He said it was "easy" to clap United out as champions.

But he added: "The only thing that is difficult to accept is that fact that we did not play on 16 April. It's difficult to accept because the Premier League is the best league in the world and it cannot afford this kind of mistake, mistake that Chelsea against Manchester United coincides with the FA Cup semi-final, with the chance that one of them would be in it.

"This should have been the game that every football fan around the world should be eating in front of his television to. The kind of game that people would change from watching a soap [opera] to see.

"I'm not saying with the fixture in April that we would win that game and win the Premiership. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that it is not a correct decision."

Mourinho again implied that there had been some kind of conspiracy against him. "This season I have had to accept a lot of decisions that I don't like," he said. "We have played every time after Manchester United. In last seven times we played six times after them. I also don't like some of the refereeing decisions but I have had to take it."

Mourinho also revealed that although Didier Drogba would be fit for Wembley, Ricardo Carvalho had only a "one per cent" chance of appearing - although that was said with a smile on his face.

He rated Ballack's prospects at "zero" following the German midfielder's decision to have surgery to his ankle without Chelsea's approval.

Asked about his relationship with the Germany captain, which has suffered following the controversy, Mourinho said: "No relationship. My relationship with injured players is not special. Injured players are with the medical department."

As for Ferguson and his team, the Chelsea manager added: "Congratulations to Manchester United, the new champions. And nothing else."