Begovic backs Mourinho as Chelsea slump worsens

Chelsea lost for the seventh time in 12 Premier League games on Saturday at Stoke City and are 16th going into a two-week worldwide break.

Mourinho served a one-game ban on Saturday for misconduct towards a referee in an October loss to West Ham, according to Rob Harris of the Associated Press, which was his second sanction by the English Football Association.

The defeat dropped Chelsea to fifth from bottom, astonishingly hovering three points above the relegation zone and placing further question marks over the manager’s future at the club he led to championship glory just six months ago.

Brendan Rodgers, recently replaced by Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool manager, worked as a youth coach at Chelsea and is also said to be under consideration.

“We displayed great character, all the qualities you need to compete against one of the best teams in Europe”.

“His spirit and his presence is always there, he’s always around us and prepared us well and we wanted to get a result for him”.

Frank Lampard says that under-fire Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho can only do so much, urging the out-of-form players to shoulder a few responsibility. The game was played with an intense amount of pressure on Jose Mourinho and the Blues players.

Without them, there is a vacuum and no-one has been able to lift the players’ heads. However, after having a near-perfect first half in terms of his defensive work, he panicked while trying to clear Johnson’s cross out of Walters’ way, and it eventually fell to goalscorer Arnautovic.

Marko Arnautovic’s goal was a moment of high quality in a game already of a good technical standard.

Juan Mata added a stoppage-time penalty after Gareth McAuley had been sent off for chopping down the fleeing Anthony Martial.

Kept Bojan quiet in the first half, winning tackles and distributing the ball well although he did deliver one disappointing pass to no one as Chelsea looked to attack one final time in the first half.

“We did, and as a effect we got the three points, which was massive for us”.

“Stoke were brilliant but a massive problem for Chelsea is scoring goals”, he said on Match of the Day.

But Norwich City pulled away from danger, climbing above Chelsea and Newcastle after Jonny Howson’s 70th-minute tap-in gave Alex Neil’s men a 1-0 home win over over Swansea City. “They are struggling to get positive results but they will turn it around, no shadow of a doubt”, he told BBC Sport.