Mourinho concedes title after attacking Chelsea’s mentality

All season long Jose Mourinho has gone to great lengths to point out that his Chelsea side are not favourites for the title.

All it took to make people finally believe him was an abject display from his side at the ground of one of the league’s relegation candidates. If he’d known that, The Special One could have saved plenty of time cooking up ridiculous horse metaphors.

After John Terry’s own goal confined the Blues to a 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace, Chelsea slipped to third favourites in the race for the Premier League title, with their odds falling to 9/2.

The Stamford Bridge club still top the league, after Manchester City were held to a draw with Arsenal, but have played more games than both their Etihad rivals and Liverpool and sit just one point ahead of the Reds, who lie second.

Of course, you don’t win Champions League trophies with two separate clubs by being a soft touch and, having publically reminded his men how much of an underdog they were all campaign, Mourinho was quick to change tack after the Palace defeat.

When asked where he thought the game was lost, Mourinho replied: “Mentality, and a little bit of quality. Mentality because the opponents beat us clearly on that: they were strong, aggressive, committed.

“Every one of them played at the top of their potential and that, in football, is important. And, after that, I think also we missed some qualities. The same qualities we’ve missed in every match we lost except Villa.”

The Portuguese went on to claim that some of his players, aside from the back four, go missing in certain matches. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the big-game ability of a side who are 11/1 to give Mourinho a third Champions League crown.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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