Led by Jose Mourinho Chelsea won their fifth Premier League title in 2015.
Jose Mourinho mocked the critics of Chelsea’s substance-over-style approach with a tongue-in-cheek speech at the club’s end of season awards dinner on Tuesday night.
The self-proclaimed Special One has previously admitted the Blues opted for a more pragmatic approach to matches as they closed in on the Premier League title they won with three matches to spare.
He told a story about three other teams who had kits not dissimilar to Manchester United’s, Manchester City’s and Arsenal’s, but first had something to say to Chelsea’s critics and afterwards for his players.
“I don’t think my players got the respect that they deserve after what they did from day one till the last day,” Mourinho said. “And these are words that I really feel, serious words.”
Following the speech, Mourinho added: “The end of the story is just simple. We have to start believing that they learned the lesson and next season will be much, much more difficult for us. We have to be ready for that.”
Mourinho’s story was accompanied by graphics at the dinner at Battersea Evolution.
“This is a football pitch with two goals, one ball, but there is one team that would like to play without goals,” he said, of the plain red-shirted team.
“That team plays really well and the ball goes and goes and goes and the quality of the ball possession is really beautiful, but no goals.
“And they ask the international board of FIFA to play like this, but they were told that it was not possible, that the bigger percentage of ball possession doesn’t win matches and they were not champions.
“After that there was another team [wearing sky blue shirts] that were less radical and they asked to play only with one goal.
Jose Mourinho has been criticised for ‘parking the bus’ but he hit back at his opponents on Tuesday night.
“They were fantastic and they scored a lot of goals and the goals were coming from every position and they score and they score and they score, but they never conceded goals, because no goal. Again, the international board told them ‘I’m sorry, you can’t be champions because football is with two goals.’
“The third team [red shirts, white sleeves] was almost there, because they wanted to play with two goals. They were scoring some, they were also conceding some. They were fantastic. They scored really beautiful goals, they concede some goals too and they were almost there.
“But they asked the international board to play only between January and April. And they told ‘no chance, no chance.’ You have to play between August and May, so they couldn’t be champions.
“Finally come another team [blue shirts]. They wanted to play with the normal rules and they know that to win matches they had to score one more goal than the opponent.
“How can you do this? By scoring a lot of goals or not conceding and scoring one. And they did it both ways. Scoring a lot, conceding some. Scoring one goal and conceding no goals.
“That was the option and lots of goals were conceding, they played from August till May and sometimes they brought the bus.”
Also during the ceremony, Chelsea’s player of the year award went to Eden Hazard, who also took home the players’ player of the year award.
Kurt Zouma was named young player of th year, while Dominic Solanke was honoured as the top academy player.
Oscar’s goal against QPR was named the best of Chelsea’s season.
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