adminLONDON. — Jose Mourinho remains adamant he will not ask Roman Abramovich for money for emergency signings next month despite Chelsea suffering their eighth defeat in the first 15 games of a dismal English Premier League soccer title defence.
Newly promoted Bournemouth won 1-0 at Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening thanks to an 82nd-minute goal from substitute Glenn Mur- ray.
That left last season’s champions marooned in 14th place and 14 points off a top-four place, and Mourinho was highly critical of his players for failing to score against a team that had never before kept a clean sheet away from home in the top flight.
But he stood by an earlier promise that he would not ask owner Abramovich and the Chelsea board to sanction the acquisition of fresh faces once the transfer window opens in January.
“Again I feel that we don’t have the right to ask the club for players,” he said.
“We started this season with this squad and the players have to do better. It is more about the players having to do better than the club going to the market.
“People must feel responsibilities. The club is the club, and when I say the club, I mean the owner and the board – they are not responsible for the bad moment. The bad moment is my responsibility and the players’ responsibility.”
Mourinho said a top-six Premier League finish may be the best his side can hope for after an eighth defeat of the campaign against Bournemouth on Saturday.
Murray’s 82nd-minute header at Stamford Bridge condemned Chelsea to a 1-0 loss that left them three points above the relegation zone and 14 points adrift of the Champions League places.
Mourinho had previously insisted that Chelsea were still capable of breaking into the top four, but he admitted that he might have to revise his objectives after the champions’ latest abject result.
“Before this game it was realistic to think that our quality would take us out of this position, but maybe now we have to think about top six,” he told Sky Sports.
“I am concerned, of course. There is no chance that Chelsea will be fighting relegation. That is not the problem. It is that our objective is to finish top four.”
Chelsea had shown an improvement in their recent outings, notably in last weekend’s 0-0 draw at Tottenham Hotspur, but Mourinho said that a deep-seated malaise may have taken root with certain players.
“If you analyse matches, and especially match after match, you can clearly identify a few players that it is difficult for them to be consistent,” he said.
“Sometimes you feel there is an evolution, but the next day you realise there is no evolution. You realise that was an individual moment where the player did better than he’s doing.” — AFP.
Online Reporter