Mourinho: Leicester can become champions

“It’s incredible, but do you want to speak about how bad we are doing, or how well they are doing?” I was miles away from believing we could lose this match.

The Foxes were not given much hope ahead of the campaign, with the appointment of journeyman manager Claudio Ranieri not inspiring the masses to believe that the King Power Stadium outfit would have a successful campaign. His star striker Jamie Vardy has gone from virtually unknown to world-famous in a matter of months and I suspect many of his teammates are experiencing the same relative changes in notoriety this season.

Mourinho said: “That is nice from him”.

They remain the underdogs – even when playing at home to Chelsea – but Leicester have been proving their doubters wrong all season. “I have to say, the last defeat was something that was far away from what I believed could happen”.

“Before we lost the last three points against Bournemouth I was absolutely convinced of the fourth position in the table”. They are used to doing this as they are the champions.

While Chelsea has made improvements in its last five matches, Leicester’s form has been easily top-four quality.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho appears to be at his wit’s end trying to motivate his players to pull themselves out of the bottom half of the Premier League table. It’s a good time to test our team at the moment.

“He will be relishing this, he will see this as a challenge of his management skills and I am pretty sure he will turn it around”.

About his actual performance with the team, Mahrez said: “I’m not really surprised”.

“I think we did well enough to have a different result [against Bournemouth]”. I feel embarrassed because I don’t know how to react.

Compared to a year ago, Fàbregas’ form has taken a huge dip.

“I think [Fàbregas] the same as the team”.

“Normally player and team is an intimate relation”.

“I don’t see Cesc differently, but what I see is that every minute the professionalism is there and he is never afraid to have the ball or to be afraid to make a mistake”.

Mourinho said he completely trusts the midfielder, despite his under-par showings this term.

“For us clean sheets are very important. So we need to score goals [given the defensive stability]”. Eden Hazard, last year’s player of the year, has yet to score a goal and is not creating with the ball at his feet.

The sight of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich grinning and exchanging high-fives with his entourage after Willian’s goal suggested Mourinho has bought himself a little time.