Jose's verdict on Chelsea

Jose Mourinho said the players ‘gave everything for the shirt’ after our 2-1 loss at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

Olivier Giroud’s early strike put us on the back foot and Marcos Alonso doubled Chelsea’s lead early in the second half. We stuck in there, got a goal back late when Erik Lamela’s cross deflected home off Antonio Rudiger and tried to find an equaliser in added time, but couldn’t carve out another chance.

“As a coach, there are defeats and defeats,” said Jose. “The boys gave everything, I can’t complain. They gave everything for the shirt, for the Club, for the fans. I cannot be critical.

“We know that if the opponent scores before us, it’s difficult. The opponent knows that if they press high, we cannot go long because we don’t have a target, a player to connect the game and when they are winning and drop the block, it’s difficult for us to get through.

“Even so, the boys played with great pride and tried everything until the last second, but the result is a defeat."

It was put to Jose that if we’d just managed to score a few minutes earlier – we pulled that goal back on 89 minutes – we might well have found an equaliser.

“I think they were in trouble,” he added. “I thought that. I told the boys that. Even at half-time, I didn’t see a very strong and compact Chelsea. I could see fragility, lots of space to play but the reality is they played with three at the back with big Rudiger, Christensen... aggressive, very difficult for us to get through.”

Next up, Wolves at home on Sunday week (1 March, 2pm).