English premier League: Aston Villa 1-2 Chelsea
Coach Mourinho reflects on the win:
‘Apart from the first 15 minutes of the second half we had good control of the game and we showed good ambition after it went to 1-1. Our second goal showed that.
‘The left-back was in the box to cross, and the right-back was in the box to finish. We pushed hard. It was a very important victory.
‘It was very difficult, and I knew it would be. I don’t analyse opponents by the number of points they have, or by the position they are in the table, or by the number of goals they score, I analyse opponents by the quality of their players, and Villa have one of the best squads.
‘They have very good players, a very good bench, and lots of solutions. It’s difficult to prepare a game against them because you don’t know the system they will play or the players they will use.
‘In the first half they tried to play on the counter attack with runners up front. Later in the game, they brought on Benteke to change the profile of the game. Later in the game they brought Sinclair and Joe Cole on to bring more creativity and more technique between the lines. It was very difficult.’
Mourinho was asked if he has different instructions for his full-backs now compared to his first spell in charge
‘When the right-back is Paulo Ferreira and the left-back is William Gallas you don’t encourage them to do what they can’t do! Gallas scored more goals than any defender but at set-pieces where he was very dangerous.
‘It depends on the circumstances. We have to use the players’ qualities the best way we can.’ We thought we were going to be dominant, and they were going to be defensive. We needed a target man in the middle of their central defenders that could give more freedom to the other players. Drogba did that for us.
Manchester City drew at home against Hull City:
‘I’m surprised by nothing. In this country every team can take points. I’m not surprised but I don’t care about it. When you are top of the league you don’t need the other teams to lose points. We have to focus on ourselves.
‘In another country I would say [the lead] was fantastic, but in this country I would say it’s nothing. Every game is difficult, anything can happen. Seven points means seven points. We have 14 matches to go, 42 points to play for. We have a lead of seven and I think it’s nice.
‘Let’s try to win the next game. If we do we will have a seven- point lead with 13 matches to go. Let’s go step by step.’
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