Avram Grant accuses media of lying

COBHAM (Reuters) - Manager Avram Grant accused the English media of lying about Chelsea ahead of Saturday's Premier League game at West Ham United.

Grant admitted there had been a training-ground row between captain John Terry and coach Henk Ten Cate ahead of Sunday's League Cup final defeat by Tottenham Hotspur.

But the Israeli was furious about media reports Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich was trying to influence team selection, that Barcelona's Frank Rijkaard was about to take his job and Grant had lost the support of his employers and confidence of the players.

"I must tell you something from my heart," Grant told reporters on Friday. "I respect all the media in England even though you gave me no credit when I first came here.

"You didn't behave so nicely and took it too far instead of waiting two or three months. I didn't say anything.

"But since then I have heard a lot of lies that aren't true."

Grant, a surprise choice to succeed Jose Mourinho in September, said the media had behaved with a lack of respect since Sunday's defeat.

"If it's a fact, like it happened with Henk and JT (Terry), I cannot say anything about it but you wrote about things that never happened," said the Israeli.

"Roman Abramovich never said anything to me about picking the team. You don't give respect.

BIG-NAME PLAYERS

"You try to hurt the team, try to hurt the players only because we lost one game. Maybe we lose tomorrow or Wednesday (against Olympiakos Piraeus in the Champions League) but wait with the knife a little bit."

Grant said Terry and Ten Cate quickly made up after their row and that there was no split in the camp after big-name players like Joe Cole, Michael Ballack and Claude Makelele were left out against Spurs.

"If you are a player you know these things happen," said the Chelsea manager. "They (Terry and Ten Cate) had some discussion between them and that's all, then you move on. One minute later they shook hands.

"The players are fantastic. They behave nicely. Don't listen to their agents so much.

"I know there were some players who were disappointed not to play in the final but that's part of it. No one (in the camp) has criticised me for the team that was selected."

Grant said many of the problems were down to agents who gave misleading stories to reporters.

"Some 95 percent of what was written in the papers didn't happen," he said. "I don't think that's down to the journalists."

(Editing by Tony Jimenez)