"I put the players under a lot of pressure for this game, I felt that," Mourinho said. "And they coped well with that pressure. They accepted the pressure and used it as a motivation, not a factor of 'not confidence'. The boys were very good, very strong, and played very well."
Chelsea now face a double-header of away and home fixtures against Schalke, who top the group having defeated Basle in Switzerland. Mourinho declared he was not concerned about Chelsea being group winners as long as they proceeded. Basle face home and away fixtures against Steaua, who are turning into the group's whipping boys.
"We put ourselves in a better position," Mourinho said. "If we didn't win we'd be in trouble. We finish at home, which is an advantage, but now we have the double fixture against Schalke, who have six points. Let's see. I don't want to think about being first at this moment, but qualifying. And everything is open. Let's go step by step. But with a victory we put ourselves in a more balanced position. We kept the intensity, defended very well and scored four goals. We could have scored more. We played a complete game."
The manager again professed that he was happy with the performance of Juan Mata who he, as promised, restored to the starting XI. But again his praise for the Spaniard was qualified. "He played No?10. He played No?7. He played very well with the ball, as he always does. And very good without the ball, as he never did. Yes [he is coming closer to me]. Very close."
No comments:
Post a Comment