Should the man Mourinho sees very much as his inferior enjoy the last laugh by inflicting a ninth league defeat of Chelsea’s season, the pressure will be back on.
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Jose Mourinho admits he is sorry that qualification for the last 16 of the Champions League is the best he can give the Chelsea fans. When we won it with Inter in 2010 we were not candidates.
“We had John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba, but I don’t really see as many leaders in this side compared to when I was there”.
“I think everybody wants to play us”.
But Mourinho has to string together five or six wins on the spin to even make sure he is Chelsea’s manager until February when the Champions League commences again.
The Blues forgot their Premier League woes to ease into the Champions League knockout stages with a routine win at Stamford Bridge.
They head to Leicester on Monday Night Football looking to get three points against former boss Claudio Ranieri and Mourinho believes the Italian’s current side can not be ruled out of the title race.
Chelsea, and in particular the recalled Costa, could have scored more.
“Yes there is a lack of confidence clearly, but not a lack of effort”.
The Spain global has struggled to perform in the Blues side this season after an alarming drop in form following the west London side’s latest Premier League success. This season he couldn’t.
“With the second chance when he faced the keeper on his own, you could immediately feel the lack of confidence because the first thing he did was not attack the goal but look to the linesman”. In the worst case scenario – Chelsea lose to Porto and Dynamo Kiev defeat Maccabi Tel-Aviv – then Chelsea are dumped into the Europa League.
“I am sad about the result”, he said.
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“Sometimes you might have eight players at a top level and three a bit down but this season maybe it’s been the other way around and it’s more hard, but we are still the same players from last season”.
