Mourinho praises 'killer' attack, lambasts 'ridiculous' defense

Saturday's craziness reminded me of a classic Jose Mourinho quip, from way back in 2004.  It's one of my favorites.

"Five-four is a hockey score, not a football score.  In a three-against-three training match, if the score reaches 5-4 I send the players back to the dressing rooms as they are not defending properly.  So to get a result like that in a game of 11 against 11 is disgraceful."

-Jose Mourinho; source: BBC

While Chelsea didn't quite reach the four goals given up "disgrace" -- and this final score brought tennis, rather than hockey to mind -- the three conceded must have still sent the manager to the brink of madness despite the ultimately high-margin victory.  Especially since all three could've been easily prevented.

"...it's difficult to believe on Wednesday afternoon we trained for one-and-a-half hours and we did only two things: defensive corners and defensive lateral free-kicks."

"Imagine how happy I am with the result of our work! It would have been better to give them Wednesday off and stay at home with my wife and kids!"

"When the opponent scores against us I want it to be because they were brilliant or because they did something that was difficult to control. We made four defensive mistakes: for the three goals, despite them being great finishes, and when Courtois made a fantastic save with the result at 4-3."

-Jose Mourinho; source: Chelsea FC

Fortunately, our attack had the one thing it sorely lacked on so many occasions last season, the killer instinct, and it bailed us out.

"We were killers in attack, especially on the counter-attack, so when you come to this stadium and get three points it is a reason to be happy. When you come here and score six goals, obviously my players did well."

"We try to have the initiative so we are a different team. But I want to be different in that we play better football, score more goals, but I don't want to be different in the sense that we concede goals and to concede three goals and identify the mistakes we made is something I have to work at."

-Jose Mourinho; source: Premier League

Scoring six goals from 12 shots (8 on target) is certainly a good indication of a killer instinct.  Mourinho reserved special praise for the biggest killer of them all (and the Premier League's leading scorer with four goals), the man who's bringing old school nastiness back into our game a la Dennis Wise and Claude Makélélé.

"He produced a fantastic performance in every aspect. [...] His movement, his quality - everything was really good."

"The end of the story is that Diego is maybe the best player in the league in these first three matches. He is the top scorer, and he has two yellow cards: one against Burnley where he didn't simulate, and today when everybody was chasing him to get him in trouble."

-Jose Mourinho; source: Chelsea FC

With the team flying high at the top of the table, it's just too bad we now have wait two whole weeks for the next game.  Thanks, FIFA.