The Portuguese manager was understandably frustrated with his team not taking enough chances on goal and praised the efforts of Eden Hazard with the way he has changed his style of play from before. The Belgian tried really hard to open up the opposition defense and try to score but wasn’t successful as a result of a resilient defense from Stock.
‘After half an hour we should have been winning 3-0 or 4-0 and we weren’t,’ said the Portuguese.
‘When you play so well and it’s so easy, you find spaces and the three players behind the striker, Hazard , Mata and Schurrle, are playing so well and creating so much, you have to kill the game. Normally you kill the game but we didn’t.
This has been the main reflection of Jose Mourinho after the defeat which should have been an easy win and three points to chase the leading Arsenal side in the table. Instead, we are trailing with four points in 2nd with just a goal difference over 3rd placed Liverpool. The Special also went on to compare today’s main problem of the team with similar games from this past season so far.
“I can compare this first half to other first halves, Everton v Chelsea and Newcastle v Chelsea, they were exactly the same, with chances, chances, chances but we didn’t score one goal. In the last part of the first half against Everton we conceded a goal and we lost. At Newcastle we concede later. Here, we conceded an equalizer at the end of the first half again.”
Jose Mourinho also praised his 3 attacking players behind the striker for their efforts of creating chances for the team but, lamented not taking enough chances and capitalizing to score as a problem we have been suffering for many times this season.
Another topic was the horrible defending of the team and some costly errors at the back in the past two consecutive games. Jose added, “We played amazingly well at the beginning of the game, I have to say it was like Sunderland, with the three players behind the striker playing very, very well, but we didn’t score enough goals. On top of that we made defensive mistakes and conceded. If you don’t score a lot of goals but you don’t make defensive mistakes you can win with just one goal.”
Those were some true reflections of the mistakes we committed in the game that made as suffer in an important period in the premier league which is the December fixtures. We will see how the league table will shape up after Arsenal’s game tomorrow against Everton. We have seen Manchester united lose at home to Newcastle just after a day Mourinho said we can’t count out the red devils out of title chances.
But, it’s been two losses in two consecutive home games for Moyes’ men at Old Trafford while Man City drew 1-1 away at Southampton. We now look forward to the midweek Champions league game against Steaua Bucharesti to cement our first spot in the group after last round’s qualification guarantee.
