‘Ridiculous mistakes’ ruined team’s fantastic effort, says Mourinho

They trail league leaders Manchester United by eight points.

“Everyone is disappointed, but we will get up and fight for a minimal chance (of qualification)”.

Mourinho also defended his decision not to bring back-up strikers Loic Remy and Radamel Falcao to Portugal, and intimated that although he is open to making changes, he doesn’t know where they are needed in his starting XI.

“We watch dozens and dozens of repetitions of Porto taking corners”.

Chelsea have now suffered five defeats this season and find themselves in third place in their Champions League group. They have already lost more matches than in the whole of last season.

“I don’t think my players deserve me to be critical of them apart from the two mistakes”, he added.

Ferdinand has slammed the current crop of Chelsea players after its loss in Porto, saying “there was no composure, no real leadership out there”.

Maicon got what proved to be the winning goal for Porto at the Estadio do Dragao after a superb Willian free-kick had cancelled out Andre Andre’s opener in a tremendous Group G encounter as Mourinho returned to face his former club. Sometimes you make that kind of mistake and you are not punished.

Porto were stunned, but Chelsea were unable to build on that moment of brilliance by the Brazilian as the home side regained the lead just seven minutes after the restart, their captain Maicon stooping to head a Ruben Neves corner low past Begovic at his near post.

It was looking like the poor season continues for the Jose Mourinho side and it was like bad dreams for the Chelsea fans.

The Football Association last night released its written reasons for Costa’s retrospective three-game ban for violent conduct following the incident with Arsenal’s Laurent Koscielny last month.

Mourinho was particularly riled by Porto’s opening which saw Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic being completely outfoxed by Porto midfielder Yacine Brahimi.

“In situations like this when the ship needs steering a little bit on the pitch when the manager can’t be the man on the pitch I think he is someone this team has always looked to”. We began well. Things changed when they scored, but we quickly equalised.

Mourinho was in the main largely happy with his sides performance but two glaring errors were punished by their opponents and much like Arsenal’s fortunes one slip up and a team at this level can take advantage.

Nevertheless, he will be keen to regroup and focus his players on Southampton this weekend, with the reigning champions needing a positive result to boost their morale and confidence.

The demotion of Terry to a bit-part player has been one of the strangest parts of what is becoming a hard season for Chelsea.