Chelsea manager José Mourinho is not convinced his side will have an advantage over Tottenham at White Hart Lane on Sunday as a result of their hosts' Europa League trip to Azerbaijan.
Mauricio Pochettino fielded a strong Spurs team for the Thursday night victory over Qarabag despite facing a meeting with their London rivals on their return to Premier League action.
Mourinho has limited sympathy when it comes to the challenges of recovering from the away tie, however, and believes it is more difficult to follow up a domestic match with a Tuesday night Champions League clash.
"Whenever we play in the Champions League, we play against teams who don't have European commitments," Mourinho told reporters.
"Between the Atletico [Madrid] semi-finals [in the Champions League] a year ago, we had to play Liverpool. This week we played. When you play Saturday then Thursday [like Spurs], you have a longer time to recover.
"When you play Saturday, Tuesday [like Chelsea] you are already in overload. This story [that Tottenham will be tired] doesn't convince me.
"If this country decided that it wasn't a problem for Chelsea, it's not a problem for Tottenham.
"In Germany, Italy, Portugal, there is a solution for everyone. There are rules for everyone. So here, I think it's the same for everyone."
After making a historically poor start to their Premier League defence, Chelsea go into Sunday's clash on the back of consecutive wins over Norwich City and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Asked whether he thought his side had turned a corner, Mourinho replied:
"No, Chelsea is a big club, big clubs have difficult moments and cope with them. They try to build to have good moments again.
"We have to play every match as if we are fighting for the title. The reality is that we need points.
"We are all focused on doing our job the best we can. The only thing we can do is try to get the maximum amount of points.
"Our only goal now is to try to get into position where we can smell the top end of the league."
Source: Goal
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