Mourinho toasts amazing first half as Chelsea extend unbeaten run with win over West Brom

Chelsea 2-1 West Brom

Jose Mourinho called Chelsea’s first-half display one of the best he has seen at Stamford Bridge as the Blues saw off a spirited West Brom side.

The league leaders were already two goals up through Diego Costa and Eden Hazard when Claudio Yacob was sent off for a two-footed tackle, effectively ending West Brom hopes.

Despite the scoreline, Mourinho was still keen to praise the Baggies fighting spirit as well as saluting the high-quality performance of his own team.

He said: “I think in the first-half we played amazingly well, I don’t remember seeing us playing football of that quality many times before at Stanford Bridge.

“In the second-half it was still comfortable but West Brom played very well with only ten men.

“Obviously it is difficult to go 2-0 down and down to ten men but they were well organised and tried to maintain that result.”

.@hazardeden10 in action at Stamford Bridge… #CFCLive pic.twitter.com/pmYPmshrbt

— Chelsea FC (@chelseafc) November 22, 2014

The home side opened the scoring in the 11^th minute when Costa brought down Oscar’s cross with his chest before volleying in for his 11^th goal of the season.

Chelsea made it two on the 25-minute mark when Hazard got the jump on a sluggish West Brom defence to turn in Cesc Fabregas’s low corner.

Things went for bad to worse for Alan Irvine’s team as Yacob’s wild challenge on Costa brought a red card.

The win means that Chelsea have remained unbeaten for 12 games, a club record for the start of a top-flight campaign, and also recorded their 12^th clean sheet in 14 league games at home.

Mourinho was delighted his side had picked up where they left off following the international break.

“I think we are playing well and are getting the result’s we deserve,” he said.

“We always have doubts about the players’ condition after an international break and you could see that in the second-half some of them were resting.

“But I am not going to blame my players for not scoring more goals instead I would rather praise West Brom for their organisation and team spirit to keep that result.”

Feature image courtesy of Brent Flanders, with thanks