Mourinho: No stress after Sunderland draw

Dropping points against Sunderland last weekend was a bit unpleasant, and it certainly marked a (temporary) shift in the conversation surrounding Chelsea FC, but to hear Jose Mourinho tell it the 0-0 draw barely meant anything at all. Instead of allowing himself and his players to stress over the rare poor result, the manager is doubling down on his team's 'perfect season':

The reaction has been normal. What do you want the team to do or to feel when the team is doing the perfect season. We’re top of the league in the Premier League, top of the group in the Champions League and in the quarter-finals of the Capital One Cup. We’ve not lost one match for four months. The team has to feel very, very good.

When the defeat arrives we have to feel exactly the same way. We are doing things very well and when a bad result arrives it is not going to change our self-belief or our self-esteem.

Source: ChelseaFC.com.

We've heard Mourinho make this point before. Chelsea are playing so well overall that any bad result is expected to be a blip rather than a trend, and so far that's been absolutely true. There's no reason to think that the Blues won't rebound from their trials at the Stadium of Light, and no reason to think that we we'll find it somehow crushing if and when we do end up actually losing a match.

This team is playing too well and on course for too many good things to let one poor performance every few weeks get anyone worried. Mourinho will deal with any bad spells when they come, but there's no reason to pre-empt them. Bring on Spurs.