José Mourinho lambasted his Chelsea players after they slid meekly out of the FA Cup, beaten 4-2 at home by Bradford City of League One.
Mourinho usually defends his teams to the hilt but he labelled the display of the Premier League leaders – albeit with an understrength side containing nine changes – as “disgraceful” and “unacceptable” after the visitors brilliantly fought back from 2-0 down after 38 minutes. “I feel happy for Bradford,” Mourinho said. “In my bad feelings with the game and with the result, I can find space to feel happy for them. But on the other hand, I feel ashamed.
“The players should feel exactly the same as I feel. This is the beauty of football, of the FA Cup. In not many sports is it possible that the best team loses to a team with completely different potential. But this is just one part of my feelings. I repeat the words that I used [on Friday] in the press conference: ‘If we lose, it’s a disgrace’.
“For me, it’s just unacceptable to lose against a team from a lower league. If I was you [a reporter], I would be very critical of Chelsea, with the Chelsea manager and the Chelsea players.”
Defeat means Chelsea cannot win four trophies this season, though they still have the Capital One Cup, Premier League and Champions League to fight for. They take on Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday in the second leg of their League Cup semi-final, with the tie locked at 1-1.
With that match in mind, Mourinho denied that fielding a weakened team on Saturday had played a part in Chelsea’s surprising downfall, their first home defeat of the season. “The other players [who don’t usually start] have to be ready to play,” he said. “They have to be ready to play in any game. If they cannot play against a team from the Championship or League One or League Two, what do we do? The selection was good enough.
“It was basically the same team that played against Watford in the third round. And against Watford we won. I have spoken about rotation, I give chances to the players that don’t play. So what I did was more than normal.
“The players that played, we are not speaking about a team of kids. The selection was more than good enough. So I think the word football ‘disgrace’ is a good word for what happened to us.”
Mourinho usually defends his teams to the hilt but he labelled the display of the Premier League leaders – albeit with an understrength side containing nine changes – as “disgraceful” and “unacceptable” after the visitors brilliantly fought back from 2-0 down after 38 minutes. “I feel happy for Bradford,” Mourinho said. “In my bad feelings with the game and with the result, I can find space to feel happy for them. But on the other hand, I feel ashamed.
“The players should feel exactly the same as I feel. This is the beauty of football, of the FA Cup. In not many sports is it possible that the best team loses to a team with completely different potential. But this is just one part of my feelings. I repeat the words that I used [on Friday] in the press conference: ‘If we lose, it’s a disgrace’.
“For me, it’s just unacceptable to lose against a team from a lower league. If I was you [a reporter], I would be very critical of Chelsea, with the Chelsea manager and the Chelsea players.”
Defeat means Chelsea cannot win four trophies this season, though they still have the Capital One Cup, Premier League and Champions League to fight for. They take on Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday in the second leg of their League Cup semi-final, with the tie locked at 1-1.
With that match in mind, Mourinho denied that fielding a weakened team on Saturday had played a part in Chelsea’s surprising downfall, their first home defeat of the season. “The other players [who don’t usually start] have to be ready to play,” he said. “They have to be ready to play in any game. If they cannot play against a team from the Championship or League One or League Two, what do we do? The selection was good enough.
“It was basically the same team that played against Watford in the third round. And against Watford we won. I have spoken about rotation, I give chances to the players that don’t play. So what I did was more than normal.
“The players that played, we are not speaking about a team of kids. The selection was more than good enough. So I think the word football ‘disgrace’ is a good word for what happened to us.”
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