Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho admitted his team might not be able to qualify for next season’s Champions League after losing 1-0 at home to Bournemouth.<\/p>\n
An eighth defeat in 15 Premier League games means the champions are 14 points behind fourth-placed Manchester United.
\n“Our objective is to finish top four,” said Mourinho.<\/p>\n
“Before this game it was realistic to think that our quality would take us out of this position but maybe now we have to think about top six.”<\/p>\n
Chelsea are now three points above the relegation zone and 17 points behind leaders Leicester.
\nMourinho added: “I am concerned of course. There is no chance that Chelsea will be fighting relegation.”<\/p>\n
But after saying he had no problem with a squad night out in midweek,he did question his players’ consistency after a poor run that has also seen them suffer home defeats by Crystal Palace, Southampton and Liverpool in the league this season.<\/p>\n
“If our players are not able to give the maximum every day that is a problem,” he added. “If you analyse match after match there are a few layers where it is difficult to be consistent. You think there is evolution, but maybe it is just one moment in which they are good.”<\/p>\n
‘Referee made a clear mistake’<\/strong><\/p>\n Bournemouth substitute Glenn Murray scored the winner with his first touch, only 99 seconds after coming on, and there was a slight suspicion of offside about the goal.<\/p>\n But Mourinho said he was more concerned by referee Mike Jones’ decision not to award his team a penalty when Simon Francis slid in to tackle Diego Costa and the ball struck the Cherries skipper’s arm.<\/p>\n Costa came on as a half-time substitute after being left out of Chelsea’s previous game at Tottenham.<\/p>\n “We didn’t deserve to lose,” the Portuguese said. “Our opponent – in the period that they thought only of defence – managed to get a goal and there was a clear mistake from the referee.<\/p>\n “I think it is a clear handball and penalty with the score at 0-0. On the goal, Mourinho added: “If it was offside it is another episode that goes against us, but I did not see it.” Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho admitted his team might not be able to qualify for next season’s Champions League after losing 1-0 at home to Bournemouth. An eighth defeat in 15 Premier League games means the champions are 14 points behind fourth-placed Manchester United. “Our objective is to finish top four,” said Mourinho. “Before this game […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":162927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3,38],"class_list":["post-172162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=172162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/162927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=172162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=172162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=172162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n“They played in a way that some call intelligent, some say is not fair play. They were taking time, calling for the medical department and drinking water like it is a basketball timeout.”<\/p>\n
\n–
\nBy: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"