Oh dear. An unhappy Mourinho bemoaning the number of matches we play in England.
‘In this country we have a lot of matches to play. There are four competitions, two-legged semi-finals in the Carling Cup, I’ve no complaints with penalties. Maybe, with a game on Saturday, it would be better to go with the penalties after 90 minutes and not play extra-time at all’
The quotes show that Mourinho’s first home defeat in the 16 months he has been at Chelsea didn’t exactly delight him! After the 90minutes the teams were level at 1-1, the 30 minutes of extra time couldn’t break the deadlock and Chelsea went out 5-4 on penalties as Huth’s shot was saved.
‘We didn’t lose the game. We lost on penalties. We were the best team on the pitch and their goal was a mistake. We had chances to win during the 90 minutes and in extra-time. They were lucky.’
Curbishley admitted his team were dead on their feet:
‘By the end of extra-time all my penalty-takers were off. There were a few blank faces. It’s just as well it didn’t go to sudden death or we’d have been pushing people out of the centre circle.’
Mourinho didn’t blame Huth though: ‘Robert Huth had scored eight out of eight in training. But human beings make mistakes.’
Mourinho had taken the game seriously playing key players like Terry and Essien for the full match, although he did rest Claude Makelele, Asier Del Horno and William Gallas.
Mourinho now fears the length of the game may affect his weekend preperations: “Players who play for two hours are tired. When matches go to extra time the games are broken and there is a lot of space. That means you have to run even more. On Saturday, some players will be in quite a difficult situation. Blackburn have had an extra day and they only played for 90 minutes against Leeds on Tuesday. But I think we can play with a good team with plenty of energy on Saturday.”
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