Jose Mourinho says he took risks at Norwich

Jose Mourinho says he took risks at Norwich

Jose Mourinho has said he took risks in the 3-1 win at Norwich yesterday.

With the scores at 1-1 in the final 20 minutes, the Chelsea boss introduced Samuel Eto'o, Eden Hazard, and Willian. And two of the substitute scored to give the blues the victory at Norwich.

'If the substitutes come in and they change the game, the manager did very well. If they come in and they make it worse, the manager made a very bad decision. In the end, I always think it is their responsibility,' said Mourinho.

'The situation became difficult at 1-1. We all knew that a point here would be a bad result for us. The whole team, not just the boys that came on, and they coped well with that pressure.

'Without losing totally the balance, we could risk a bit and try to bring to the game different things to see if Norwich could cope with that.

'I had to go with what I did. I had to put Eto'o, Hazard and Willian on, all three at the same time.

'We could win, we could lose. At that moment we didn't want the point, we played with three guys at the back with Schurrle open, Eden central to make three quick strikers. We lost a bit of balance to try to gamble and create. We left the road a bit open for Norwich too. If they scored a second goal, probably we lose. We are trying to be top so after one point at Tottenham, one point here today would be a bad result, so we tried to win.'

Norwich manager Chris Hughton lamented his side conceding Chelsea's second goal following what had been a Norwich corner…

'Our set up to deal with the counter-attack was good,' he said, 'but the power and the pace Chelsea have made it difficult.

'With the third goal you have to hold your hand up sometimes and say it was a good strike, and they have the quality on the bench to bring on players like those, but when it went to 2-1 it became difficult. The second goal hurts us.'