José Mourinho is often quick to obfuscate in the wake of defeat but after a 2-1 defeat by an excellent Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge left Chelsea 13th in the Premier League Mourinho was unusually phlegmatic, laying the blame squarely on his own underperforming players and ruling out any knee-jerk spending in what remains of the transfer window.
If this was just Mourinho’s second defeat in his 100th home league match in charge, it was arguably Chelsea’s worst Premier League performance in those twin spells at the club, a third defeat in five competitive matches that leaves the champions eight points off the leaders, Manchester City.
“I cannot say I had 11 players at the same time performing,” Mourinho said. “Two or three of them, their individual performance were far from good. I blame myself for not changing one of them. I kept him in the game for 90 minutes and when I made the third change I realised I needed a fourth.
“I’m not happy because for me a performance is a collective performance, of 11 players at the same time. At this level, when opponents are good and well organised with nothing to lose, when you have this type of matches at this level you need people to perform.”
Mourinho refused to reveal which player he had wanted to take off, although it is a tribute to the poverty of Chelsea’s performance that he could have taken his pick from Branislav Ivanovic, who was again worryingly vulnerable against the excellent Bakary Sako, to Cesc Fàbregas, who was entirely outgunned by Palace’s own midfield playmaker Jason Puncheon.
As Alan Pardew commented: “If Roy Hodgson gets the tape of this game I think he’ll be impressed with what Punch did today with the ball,” and Mourinho was also quick to praise a Palace performance Pardew felt was the best in his time in charge of the club. “They came with everything,” Mourinho said. “The team was ready, the players were ready, the fans were ready. They come with a fantastic spirit.”
Mourinho ruled out any further transfer business (“We have to do better. Me and the players have to do better”) and also refused to concede ground in the title race, pointing to the fact Chelsea themselves dropped a seven-point lead in the league in January this year. He will, though, have an uncomfortable international break now contemplating the immediate fate of his underperforming players.
“If a player is not performing there are two ways to look at it. The first one is I trust so much the player that I will wait for the improvement. You wait, wait and wait and maybe it comes or doesn’t come. Or even while you are trusting the players arrives a moment when you think I have to change. And I can go both ways.”
