Chelsea‘s Willian, left, competes for the ball with Bournemouth’s Charlie Daniels during the English Premier League soccer match between Chelsea and AFC Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge stadium in London, Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015.
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Glenn Murray’s 82nd-minute goal for Bournemouth condemned Chelsea to their worst defeat of a wretched season on Saturday, while Riyad Mahrez’s hat-trick fired Leicester City top of the Premier League.
Chelsea face further examinations against Porto and Leicester in the next 10 days, while the Cherries next play Manchester United.
But it was Murray who settled the game, nodding in from close range after fit-again Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois had come for a corner and missed.
Mourinho put some of the blame for Chelsea’s slump on strikers Diego Costa of Spain and France’s Loic Remy. The Cherries huddled round Howe and assistant Jason Tindall at any lengthy break in play and enacted the game plan perfectly. The reality is there have been four losses – to West Ham, Liverpool, Stoke and now Bournemouth – in seven league games since the owner sanctioned a statement issuing a public vote of confidence in the manager in early October. Just as Chelsea were starting to look stale going forward, Mourinho made a decision to sub on Costa at the beginning of the second half, but finished with disappointing results.
In the first few games of the season when Chelsea were struggling, the supporters were singing, “we are staying up”, joking that they were in a relegation battle.
He also supplied a cross that struck Simon Francis’ arm and looked a blatant penalty but referee Michael Jones, who had spoken to Costa earlier about a push on the same player, waved it away.
Costa was working hard to make the breakthrough, with Boruc parrying his volley on the stretch. I don’t think so. Chelsea were again ponderous in possession and lacked a presence, which barely changed when Costa came on at half-time. “But they did very well”. Chelsea, four-time Premier League winners in the last decade, is approaching the midway point of the season an alarming 17 points behind surprise leader Leicester, which was itself fighting relegation for much of last season.
“I’m concerned and I was concerned before this game”, he added. “The problem is that our objective is to finish in the top four”.
“In the first-half we were not aggressive enough, we had a couple of shots, a couple of chances but in the second-half we were much more aggressive”.
“In the first half we were a bit passive and didn’t press enough”, Mourinho said. Managers still available at this point include former Chelsea gaffer Carlo Ancelotti and ex-Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers.
“Before this game it was realistic to think that our quality would take us out of this position, but maybe now we have to think about top six”, he told Sky Sports. I thought we were magnificent defensively. “There were question marks about our defending, but we have answered those questions today”.
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“I only know one way which is what I know since day one – to work and give my maximum every day and every match”.
