Jose Mourinho's mood darkens as he takes aim at 'shameful' LaLiga, 'strange' referees

Jose Mourinho's mood at Real Madrid is darkening, with pressure beginning to tell on the 63-year-old.

The Portuguese watched his side rescue a victory against Roma on Wednesday night but the Spanish giants remain unconvincing and trail bitter rivals Barcelona by six points already in LaLiga.

Mourinho appears to be reverting to type, picking fights to deflect attention from his stuttering side, with LaLiga, referees and even his own booing supporters in the firing line on what Spanish press have branded his 'blacklist'.

Mourinho was furious with what he perceived as deliberately provocative timing from LaLiga's disciplinary committee, who released news of Vinicius Jr's hefty four-game ban for a hair-pull just two hours before the Brazilian took to the pitch in Rome.

Vinicius proceeded to have one of his worst 60 minutes of the season before being unceremoniously hooked by the manager and replaced by eventual match-winner Endrick.

Mourinho bristled at full-time: 'You're the journalist, but... can I ask you a question? Do you think it's normal that a player from a Spanish team, who has to play a match that's also important for Spanish football...

'Do you think it's normal that two hours before a match, a player finds out he's been given a four-match suspension?

'You don't have to answer, but that's the question I'm asking. Do you think it's normal?'

LaLiga's disciplinary panel usually release punishments on a Wednesday afternoon and he used an unusual Portuguese expression to describe what he thought was an obvious move to enrage the club.

He said: 'Couldn’t they do it now (after the match)? Couldn’t they do it tomorrow morning (today)? We have to come by bus, and it’s almost as we arrive at the stadium that we find out Vinicius has a four-match suspension.

'In Portuguese there’s an expression, "a cat hiding with its tail sticking out".'

Mourinho wasn't finished there. His next gripe was with what he perceived as unfair scheduling with just 72 hours between matches in November before the international break.

He went on: 'At the very least, it shows a lack of respect. Playing in Athens on Wednesday night, arriving back in Madrid probably at five in the morning or something like that, and then playing in Valencia on Saturday, on a weekend preceding an international break, where it makes absolutely no sense to make you play in Valencia on Saturday, which is an extremely difficult match... It doesn't seem innocent to me.'

'I don’t buy the same old excuses. I’ve been involved in football for 25 years. The excuses about ‘the TV’ — that "it was the TV that decided, it was the TV that chose Saturday for the match."

'I’m too old to swallow this. And this Vinicius story, finding out two hours before the match that he has a four-match suspension… It doesn’t deserve comment. Real Madrid fans aren’t stupid, and I’ll do everything I can to open people’s eyes.'

Only last week, he also took a swipe at the press, blaming the Spanish media for provoking Real fans into booing Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius this season.

'If there are whistles at the Bernabéu, for you it will be a great victory,' he said.

'This is one of your objectives! Obviously it is. You don't need to be Einstein to understand that the dynamic leads exactly to this... This is the objective. Whose? I prefer not to... not to talk about it.'