{"id":3117,"date":"2014-03-29T23:04:08","date_gmt":"2014-03-29T23:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=3117"},"modified":"2014-03-30T00:08:26","modified_gmt":"2014-03-30T00:08:26","slug":"mourinho-attacks-ballboy-gives-up-tittle-hopes-for-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/mourinho-attacks-ballboy-gives-up-tittle-hopes-for-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Mourinho Blasts Chelsea Players. Gives Up Tittle Hopes For Real"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jose Mourinho’s\u00a0frustration clearly got to the Chelsea boss when he confronted a young ballboy who was slow to give the ball back near the end of the Blues infamous 0-1 loss to Crystal Palace Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Portuguese said he was trying to avoid an incident similar to when Eden Hazard was sent off for kicking a ballboy at Swansea last season.<\/p>\n

\u2018I thought Cesar Azpilicueta was going to lose emotional control (with the ballboy) and the kids are educated to do this but if a player hits a ballboy then the person who educates them disappears and the player is in trouble for pushing or punching the kid.<\/p>\n

\u2018I had a chance to get the kid and the kid was cute and I told him \u201cyou do this, one day somebody punches you\u201d. We saw what happened with Eden.\u2019<\/p>\n

Mourinho’s frustration did not end with the ballboy, the self acclaimed ”special one” also laid into his big-name players for going missing in the shock 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace \u2014 and he conceded Chelsea are out of the title race, despite hanging onto top spot after Manchester City could only draw 1-1 at Arsenal.<\/p>\n

He had nothing but praise for defenders such as Garry Cahill and John Terry, whose 52nd-minute own-goal handed Palace their unexpected triumph.<\/p>\n

But he tore into his attacking gems who failed dismally to light up Selhurst Park, just as they\u2019d failed to inspire Chelsea when they crashed to defeat at Aston Villa two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Mourino said: \u2018Clearly we have some players who because of their profile they find it difficult to perform in some profile of matches.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018We were missing some qualities. \u2018We could have scored in the first half and had chances to equalise in the second half but even so they deserved to win.<\/p>\n

\u2018The qualities we missed are the same in every match we lost except to Aston Villa (where Mourinho blamed refereeing decisions for Chelsea\u2019s defeat).<\/p>\n

\u2018You can find things in common with every match we lost this season \u2014 to Stoke City, Everton, Newcastle away and at West Brom where we dropped two points.<\/p>\n

\u2018My four defenders, phenomenal performance, as always. The others I\u2019d prefer not to analyse individually.<\/p>\n

\u2018You have Terry, Ivanovic, Cahill and Azpilicueta and they perform in the sun, the rain, small pitches, big pitches, aggressive teams, possession teams. They perform every game from day one to the last day.<\/p>\n

Then you have other players who are fantastic in some matches and disappear in other matches.
\n\u2018You can easily find what these matches have in common.\u2019<\/p>\n

The upshot, according to the Portuguese, is that while this may be the closest title chase for years, Chelsea aren\u2019t in it.<\/p>\n

Mourinho was gracious in defeat, clapping the Crystal Palace fans as he left the pitch at Selhurst Park. But he also waved goodbye \u2014 in his estimation \u2014 to Chelsea\u2019s title aspirations.<\/p>\n

\u2018Now we have lost our chance of finishing first,\u2019 he said. \u2018Now we depend too much on other results. When it depends a little it is possible. When it is a lot, it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u2018I know mathematically it is still possible. But one thing is mathematics and one thing is reality.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to happen.\u2019<\/p>\n

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Jose Mourinho’s\u00a0frustration clearly got to the Chelsea boss when he confronted a young ballboy who was slow to give the ball back near the end of the Blues infamous 0-1 loss to Crystal Palace Saturday. The Portuguese said he was trying to avoid an incident similar to when Eden Hazard was sent off for kicking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3117"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3131,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions\/3131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}