Jose Mourinho urges Chelsea to be more ruthless

Posted Monday, December 16, 2013 by skysports.com

Jose Mourinho: Unhappy with Chelsea's wasteful finishing

Jose Mourinho admits Chelsea must be more ruthless in front of goal if they are going to take command of the title race.

Chelsea moved to within two points of Premier League leaders Arsenal with a 2-1 win over Crystal Palace on Saturday, but they were forced to work hard for the result at Stamford Bridge.

Wasteful finishing from the hosts almost allowed Palace to pinch a point and Mourinho urged his players to make their chances count instead of holding on to slender leads.

"The base of our game is to kill opponents by scoring goals, because we don't want to go in the direction of being a more defensive team," he said.

"This is the easy direction to go: to build a team, to close the team, to make it compact, to wait for a goal, waiting for a counter-attack.

"This is not what we want to do and because it's not what we want to do, the way to kill opponents is to score goals."

Last ditch blocks from John Terry and Petr Cech protected Chelsea's lead and Mourinho feels his side's failure to kill off games is putting the defence under more pressure.

"When you don't kill opponents playing well, when in the game you have bad moments - because you always have bad moments in the game - you are in trouble," he said.

"You put yourself into trouble and you panic a little bit. When you lose possession of the ball or when they get a free-kick or when they get a corner or when they put a long ball in the box, you shake. And because you shake, you make mistakes."

Torres scored Chelsea's opener with a poacher's effort and his manager believes the Spaniard is showing glimpses of his best form.

"He was the Torres that we know," Mourinho said.

"Without the ball he presses a lot and he's not a comfortable opponent.

"When the team has the ball he's the kind of guy that makes movements and tries to open space.

"When he has the ball on his feet with the back to the goal, he's not a very skilful player, we know that.

"In their goal, he lost the ball when he dropped back to the midfield. He's not that player. But he does his contribution."