LIVERPOOL // Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho does not think his side can go the whole season unbeaten despite winning at Liverpool on Saturday.
Goals from Gary Cahill and Diego Costa, with his 10th of the season, saw Chelsea recover from Emre Can’s first strike for the home side to record a 2-1 win at Anfield.
It made it 11 games unbeaten from the start of the campaign and consolidated their position at the top of the table, but Mourinho cannot see his side emulating Arsenal's Invincibles from 2003/04.
“I think it is possible to be champion. Before the season started we considered ourselves contenders, but in modern football, especially in the Premier League, I don’t believe in an unbeaten run,” Mourinho said. “It is a good start and I believe my team can keep this stability. One day we will lose and the next game we’ll win again and one day we’ll play badly because it is the nature of the game, but we will recover the quality of our game.
“I know that the negative moment will arrive, the defeat will arrive and we are prepared for that. At this moment we are a happy camp. One day the defeat arrives, and when it does, we will be the same.”
Defeat for Liverpool was their third in a row after losing to Newcastle and then Real Madrid in the Uefa Champions League.
After making seven changes in the Bernabeu with a view to fielding his strongest side in this fixture, Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers was unrepentant having seen his plan fail.
“I would hopefully win the three games,” he said when asked what he would do differently. “We plan and prepare the team the best we can, so I wouldn’t do anything different. We just didn’t get the results. Hopefully this will be an experience for us this week and we can use that to be better going forward.”
Rodgers felt his side deserved a draw from the match after Steven Gerrard’s late shot appeared to hit the arm of Cahill.
Having seen Chelsea’s opener awarded via the goal decision system, Rodgers felt aggrieved the officials had not spotted the incident.
“The technology coming into the game has been great – sometimes it goes for you, sometimes it works against you,” he said.
“It is bitterly disappointing for us that there was a big decision in a big game that we didn’t get.
“It was a clear handball – and you need to get that. If we weren’t going to get it [a goal] from open play, we should have got it from the penalty spot.
“The referee had a clear look at it, but he maybe needed some help from his linesman.”
In terms of technology, Mourinho could say he has benefited from a close call at Anfield, having continually railed against Luis Garcia’s goal in a 2005 Champions League tie, which he still argues did not cross the line.
“I didn’t know it was a goal,” he said of Cahill’s effort.
“Goal-line technology is simple. It costs money, but it is simple. You don’t have to stop the game, it is a decision in seconds. The truth is what everyone wants. Everyone knows it was a true goal and I think this is fantastic for us as professionals, for the crowd and the referee because without goal-line technology it is difficult for them to make a decision.”
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