Jose Mourinho has bought himself more time to reverse Chelsea’s fortunes after guiding the club into the Champions League knockout stage.
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Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has praised his side for reaching the last 16 of the Champions League, but also issued an apology to the club’s fans for “not giving more”.
Chelsea’s Willian celebrates after scoring the team’s second goal in their 2-0 Champions League win over FC Porto on Wednesday.
Either Paris St-Germain, Juventus, PSV Eindhoven, Benfica, Roma or Gent await. While Chelsea’s ills have hardly been magically cured, there is now room for some optimism ahead of a challenging Premier League fixture against leaders Leicester City next Monday.
“In the league I think we have lacked a bit of confidence but not in the Champions League”.
“When we were a candidate we lost two semi-finals with Real Madrid, we lost two semi-finals with Chelsea”.
The two fell out while at Real Madrid, and Mourinho is credited with kick-starting Casillas’ eventual departure from the Santiago Bernabeu in the summer.
Olivier Giroud scored all of the Gunners goals in their 3-0 win against direct Group F rivals Olympiacos that qualified the Londoners for the last 16 behind section winners Bayern Munich.
The effect of a loss would have seen Chelsea drop to the Europa League and Mourinho said it was with a sense of pride that his players fought to avoid that scenario. “The start of the season has not been good for me – not in how I have played nor in goals”.
Having lost eight matches already this season, Mourinho’s side sit just two points above the relegation zone, and given their late game this weekend, they may even find themselves in the bottom three by kickoff. I just remember the first goal here against Kiev was a defender who scored an own-goal, today it was a defender who scored an own-goal.
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“We made a couple of mistakes and we’re out of the elite competition, but the Europa League will be another challenge”, he said according to AS.
