Despite our loss to Newcastle Jose Mourinho insist everything is fine at Chelsea, for the Portuguese tactician, it’s only one defeat. Chelsea’s 2-1 loss to Newcastle during the weekend was the first of the season. Papiss Cisse scored twice, a familiar sight, before Didier Drogba scored a powerful header from a Cesc Fabregas set piece, which only proved to be a consolation.
Mourinho said he didn’t think the performance of the players was lacking only that the team was unlucky, “We were unlucky,” he said, “and Newcastle had the luck, but I have no complaints towards my players and how they went about the game, It’s only one defeat but it’s the kind of defeat which I can accept a little more, because I have no problem with the way my players played.”
The media had already started labelling Chelsea as potential ‘invincibles’ but the result at St. James Park flipped the script. Mourinho had since been playing down the prospect of taking on that challenge saying earlier in previous post games pressers that we would lose games eventually. “It would have been so very difficult to through the season unbeaten as so many people would have suggested. But even after this defeat, we would have to ask the other 19 teams in the premier league if they would like to be in our position.” Mourinho said, before adding “The best team lost. The team that tried to win it lost, and that’s football.”
Chelsea personally would have been disappointed to lose that particular game as the club was looking to set a new club record of 24 games unbeaten in all competition, as three times now they have tied on 23, in 2007, 2011 and now 2014. Chelsea would be looking to quickly move on from Premier League blues at the weekend to a midweek cruise in the Champions League, despite already qualified. Chelsea play Sporting Lisbon, who still have work to do in qualifying and would have to go through Chelsea to qualify if results elsewhere are not helpful.
Elsewhere, close by and now just three points away, Manchester City are definitely picking up the breadcrumbs as they trail lesser and lesser. City’s power house, Yaya Toure made no mistake from the spot against Everton as the Manchester citizens claimed all 3 points in the fixture to ensure Chelsea’s safety was rattled. It wasn’t all good news for City though; Sergio Aguero limped off with a knee injury very early in the game. Manuel Pellegrini did say it wasn’t as bad as first feared but the lethal Argentine will be out for about a month.
Aguero’s injury does provide a plot twist in City’s plan to retain the title; a lot could happen over the course of a month, especially if that month is December in the Barclays Premier League. However, City is still a multitalented team and with critics saying they have been a ‘one man team’ all season the injury provides an opportunity to dismiss those observations or encourage them.
Further down below, Manchester United are now in third position after winning Southampton on Monday 2-1. United have seen some sort of rejuvenation since playing Arsenal and look a threat once again, but they are still too far down to cause Chelsea any disturbance at the top. Southampton drop with that result to fifth while Arsenal’s ‘usual’ 4th spot is currently occupied by West Ham, after losing to Stoke City in a 3-2 thriller.
That being said, Mourinho has stated made a number of bold statements since his arrival in the summer of 2013, in addition to saying we won’t go unbeaten this season, he said we won’t win the title last season and said we were the ‘little horse’ he was also right on that occasion, he was also right when he said ‘we would challenge for the title this season’ come May next year Chelsea fans would be hoping he is right on the money with the Premier League title clinched in true blue colours.
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