Thursday, 4 December 2014

Jose Mourinho says Didier Drogba, Loic Remy key to Chelsea's success



Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho believes the form of back-up strikers Didier Drogba and Loic Remy is proving to be crucial to his side's assault on the Premier League title.

Drogba and Remy both scored in the absence of suspended first choice striker Diego Costa in the 3-0 win against Tottenham at Stamford Bridge, with the Blues boss fulsome in his praise of his second and third choice marksmen.

"I didn't want to talk about Diego not playing in this game because I know what I have," he told reporters. 

"We have Diego, Drogba and Remy scoring goals. All of them are scoring goals.

"Didier and Remy don't play so many minutes, but when they play there are there and it is important for us. We don't cry because somebody is suspended. We just try to be positive and give confidence to the players who are going to play."

The Chelsea boss went on to insist he is not surprised by the form of Drogba, who is exceeding the expectations many had of him when he returned to the club for a second spell last summer at the age of 36.

"I was expecting exactly this from Didier," he continued. "The important thing is that he's here and he's going to finish his career with Chelsea. It looks, for me, that he's going to stay [at Chelsea] doing other things when he finishes his career.

Didier Drogba scored to lift Chelsea to a comprehensive victory over Tottenham on Wednesday.

"First of all he's a team player. After that he's one of these old days mentality. Not selfish, not vain. A humble guy, who plays for the team, fights for the team.

"It will be his decision when he decides when to stop as a player. It will be something personal."

Mourinho went on to suggest Mauricio Pochettino's Tottenham were unfortunate to lose so convincingly, as they continued their record of not winning at Stamford Bridge since February 1990.

"The 3-0 [score line] is not right for Tottenham, they play better than that," stated Mourinho. "For my team, I am so happy. The points, the goal difference, the performance, the way the players could identify the difficult moments of the game. It was fantastic.

"We had difficult moments that we not our fault. Tottenham created chances and they started very well at the start of the first and second half. They are a very good team and the principles of their team very well established and it is not easy to play against them.

"Pochettino is a very positive coach. He doesn't play for anything other than to win and to try and play good football. [Harry] Kane hit the post at the start of the match and they had another difficult situation for us and if they score, it would have been difficult for us. After that, our team was strong and defended very well."

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