Chelsea 0-0 Norwich
The tasteless tie against a weak Norwich side put an end to Chelsea’s title hopes. following a stunning home defeat in the second leg of the Champions league semifinals, Mourinho’s men were just incapable of creating and lack everything to beat Norwich. This time almost condemned them to 3rd place in EPL and that entitle will be in between Liverpool and Manchester city. Even Arsenal can catch back on them..
Mourinho reacts:
‘The team was much better in the second half,’ he said. ‘It was a lazy first half; slow, no pressure, the midfield weren’t arriving to press the opponent, the passing was very slow.
‘When you lose a Champions League semi-final and you know you are not realistically in the title race, the mental energy and focus disappears. You start think more about what’s next then what you have to do now and that was reflected in the first half, which was typical of that state of mind.
‘In the second half we were much better, good enough to win, but we didn’t. The game was a bit of a contradiction because they had to win to try to have a chance to survive but they didn’t try, and we needed a point to finish third and we risked everything.
‘In the last part of the game pragmatic people with a calm view of the situation could ask what we were doing, we only needed one point to finish third and we took off Matic for Torres. We wanted to win our final home game and give the fans a better feeling, in the second half we deserved that but we didn’t score.’
‘They tried everything. We could have been better in some matches, for example against Crystal Palace where we didn’t play very well.
‘We could have killed matches – Everton, Newcastle and Stoke – where we had the matches under control and we didn’t kill them. It’s a very dangerous league, during the whole season if you lose two matches you are out of the top four.
‘Important teams didn’t reach their minimum objectives and we managed to always be there. We were never in danger, never outside the top four and never out of the title race. In the end we didn’t manage to win it but we were always there.
‘In the Champions League it was the same. Big teams went out in the early stages. Juventus didn’t make the knockout phase. Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal and Barcelona all left the competition early and we managed to get to the second leg of the semi-finals. For the group we have, and the potential we have, I think we did okay.’
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