Chelsea coach Mourinho drops target for top-four finish in EPL

“It’s a knockout game”, Mourinho said.

The Portuguese again insisted he had no “right” to demand transfer activity in January. “The responsibility for the bad moment is my responsibility and the players’ responsibility”.

Porto goalkeeper Iker Casillas has claimed that he and the rest of his Porto team-mates are “obsessed” with beating Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea on Wednesday. “It is that our objective is to finish top four”. “It has not been a bundle of laughs in the dressing room after games, and the players had been used to winning”.

Two goals inside the opening 15 minutes from Stoke’s Austrian striker Marko Arnautovic, both created by Swiss playmaker Xherdan Shaqiri, condemned injury-hit Manchester City to defeat at a blustery Britannia Stadium.

“It gives the players some reward for how hard they’ve worked”, said Howe, a former Bournemouth player who went around town with buckets collecting cash to keep the club afloat during the late 1990s.

“I explain the inconsistency with unlucky details”, Mourinho said. It was a penalty and the goal was offside.

“We were really unlucky, especially to concede a goal when we don’t deserve”.

“But apart from that, inconsistency has also to do with individual inconsistency”.

“You think there is an evolution but the next day you realise it’s not evolution it was just an individual moment, and to get results you have to be consistent and we are not because of some individuals”. You need to score, otherwise you can not win, and it is very frustrating, also for the players because they want to score.

And Burt thinks it would be a “complete change of culture” if results do not improve and Mourinho still remains at the club. “If you are in the box you have to attack the ball and touch it in”.

If Mourinho loses his job in the coming weeks, it will represent one of the biggest crashes in reputation ever seen from a coach in England.

“The manager’s key to that, that’s why he’s going to be one of the best managers in the country”.

“I think it is a clear handball and penalty with the score at 0-0”.

“It’s is a small place so if they plan something, I will certainly be aware of it”, he said.

Willian is the club’s top scorer with six goals, but none of them have come from open play, while Pedro Rodriguez, Oscar and Falcao have one apiece in the Premier League.

Chelsea slumped to their eighth Premier League defeat on Saturday, surprisingly beaten 1-0 at home by Bournemouth.

There was widespread belief around the club in the last week that they were past the worst of the crisis and that “the storm is over” – as was reflected in the manager’s upbeat mood in his press conference before the Bournemouth game.

Mourinho, who signed a four-year deal until June 2019 in August, received a vote of confidence from owner Roman Abramovich on October 5, but the team has so far failed to deliver on a couple of promising performances with four wins and five losses in 11 games since.