As the Tottenham supporters chanted we want six Jose Mourinho wore a grim look on the touchline, probably planning his predictable post-match referee rant after the 5-3 defeat at Tottenham on New Year’s Day. When Chelsea were 1-0 up Mourinho believed his side should have been awarded a penalty for a handball by Jan Vertonghen. He used that perceived injustice as further evidence of the campaign against Chelsea this season, a conspiracy the Blues boss first suggested the previous weekend. Nobody should be fooled by Mourinho’s attention- deflecting tactics after a humiliating defeat that has left Chelsea top of the Premier League table only on alphabetical order. They are level with Manchester City on points, goal difference and goals scored and the title race is likely to remain neck-and-neck for the remainder of the campaign. Hours after Chelsea legend Frank Lampard scored City’s winner in their 3-2 victory over Sunderland, the Londoners were torn apart by a rampant Tottenham team inspired by Harry Kane. Kane will likely haunt the dreams of John Terry and Gary Cahill for the foreseeable future after scoring twice and tormenting the visitors with his strength, technical quality and clinical finishing. But what on earth happened to Chelsea? Ahead of their trip across London, they had only conceded three times in their previous eight games, but everything fell apart here. I’m more shocked with other things than conceding five goals. That can happen but you can have a bad game, it can happen, Mourinho said in his post-match press conference. What I am shocked about is that is that in three days we had two incredible decisions that punished us in a very hard way. The one in the first half, which is clear, is the one that is difficult to accept. Managers and players win and lose. Mr Dowd didn’t lose. Mourinho is scraping the barrel if he thinks referee Phil Dowd is to blame, especially given the incident in question was nothing like the clear kick on Cesc Fabregas in Sundays 1-1 draw with Southampton. Mourinho likes to create a siege mentality when his side are under pressure, to act as a lightning rod for his players. That appeared to be the case after the Saints match, but this time he needs to look at his own teams failings. The Portuguese should be working out how a team managed by him conceded five goals for only the second time in his career, why Tottenham were so much sharper to the ball and able to slice open Chelsea’s defence. Now they have City – and Lampard – at their side, jostling for position ahead of the title run-in. Chelsea were brilliant in the first half of the season and Mourinho will want to mark this down as a freak result. In that case, he will have to stop blaming the officials and make sure that there is no repeat of this woeful defensive display.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 12:04:12 +0000