The Portuguese has admitted his team's display
on the road are a worry, insisting the squad
"deserved to lose" to Newcastle as their six-game
winning streak came to an end
Jose Mourinho was frustrated after his Chelsea side
produced another lacklustre away performance in
defeat to Newcastle United at St James’ Park.
The Blues have won only one of five Premier League
away games so far this season and missed out on the
opportunity to top the table due to the surprise 2-0
loss, having previously gone nine games unbeaten and
winning each of their last six games.
And Mourinho was pulling no punches after the game,
accusing his players of being too soft and lacking in any
kind of aggressive intent.
"Of course I am worried," he said at his press
conference. "This season we have played five matches
away – all difficult places to go – but we only have one
victory and two defeats from those games so of course
that concerns me.
"We were lacking everything – it was a really bad
performance from us. We were not even thinking
aggressively.
"We had the space to play the ball forward and
between the lines behind Yohan Cabaye and Cheikh
Tiote. We could have hurt the opponent and all we
were doing is playing the ball from side to side – always
horizontal, never vertical. We were slow and not sharp
enough to attack spaces.
"In previous years the same performances have
happened - Chelsea have been successful in cups but
not in the Premier League.
"They have been finishing 15 to 20 points behind and
one year they qualified for Champions League because
they won it but finished outside the top four. Last year
in December they were not in the title race."
Mourinho likened his side’s first-half performance to a
friendly match, and says he will take some time to
analyse what went wrong before looking ahead to
future matches.
He continued: "The result is a consequence of one team
not being there. When that is the case, they normally
lose – so that is my explanation for the result.
"I think the first half was very easy to play – lots of
space, no real pressure from the opposition. But we
were not aggressive with the ball and often lost it
straight away. We were not pressing. We were too soft,
not aggressive nor intense enough. We gave them 45
minutes of a friendly.
"We deserved to lose. Maybe they did not deserve to
win but we definitely deserved to lose."
The Portuguese boss admitted before the game he had
been finding it tough to pick a team given the strength
of squad at his disposal and was asked afterwards if he
felt he made the right choices at St James' Park.
Mourinho joked: "I made eleven mistakes. I should have
picked the other eleven rather than this one! That is the
feeling I have when my team has played so badly.
"Of course I am exaggerating and some players had
some normal or good performances but my feeling
after a defeat is that I made eleven wrong choices.
Before I think about how we will react I have to try to
understand why we performed this way in this match."
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