Mourinho praises team for taking pleasure away from those who want Chelsea to fail

On Sunday, Chelsea did something we haven't done in four years: win at the Hawthorns.  We also did several things that we've done far more frequently, such as making things harder on ourselves and provide fodder for easy back-page headlines.  Fortunately, despite John Terry's red card — both managers thought it was harsh, for what it's worth — Chelsea managed to collect our first win of the season, and in the process, leave many "neutral" observers disappointed.

"I don't want to make [anything of the red card]. To speak about that I have to speak about many other things in the game, some things you can see, others we can see. And so many things. One striker push one defender, it's a foul, it's not a foul... Stop the game in midfield it's a yellow card, it's not a yellow card. Penalty. You give... why do you let [Cesar] ­Azipilcueta shoot and maybe he misses the target and it's not a goal and a penalty."

"So I prefer to concentrate on us. Then, with one player less, and we are getting experience of that, we adapted well... the players really want to win. The big disappointment for some: tomorrow the back pages will have to be different because we won."

-Jose Mourinho; source: Telegraph

Mourinho has very much doubled down on the "Us vs. Them" rhetoric this season — in these trying times, that's probably quite necessary.  Plus, it seems to be having the intended effect on the players as far as their desire to win and fight through adversity is concerned.  We've spent over 25% of the season short-handed so far and yet we have just one loss ... and that from the game where we actually finished with 11 men.

"I'm happy we controlled the game well, and I'm happy with the spirit because the players really wanted to win.'

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"I have to do what is in my hands which is to train. We have to train 10 against 11. We have done it a couple of times already in Canada. We have to do it more because we have to know what to do with 10 men when you are winning, or losing, or chasing a result."

"The difference between today and Swansea was exactly that. Against Swansea we had 10 and we wanted to change the result, and today we had 10 and we wanted to keep the result. We must have clear ideas about it so it's something we have to do in training, and that is the only thing in our hands."

-Jose Mourinho; source: Chelsea FC