Jose Mourinho admitted his side had to live on their nerves to get through a testing night at West Ham, but praised their resilience in surviving.
They had chances to make their win more comfortable, but in the end had to grind out the three points given to them by Eden Hazard’s first-half header.
“I agree totally,” the Chelsea boss said when asked if he had found the evening nail-biting.
“We had chances to kill the game. We were expecting that. But we didn’t [score] and when you don’t do that against West Ham, you are in permanent danger. They are very dangerous. So, it was a great victory.
“In every title race, you have different matches to play. You have matches where you need your quality to win, you have other matches where you need luck and other matches where you need to adapt to the opponent and today was one of these cases.
“We had to adapt and John [Terry], [Gary] Cahill and Kurt Zouma for the direct football, [Thibaut] Courtois amazing in everything, the midfield trying to keep the ball and reach attacking players to kill the game. In some periods we had to defend with everything.
“It was a game where you could easily lose two points and I’m happy with the fact we won.”
Mourinho, whose side won the Capital One Cup on Sunday, added: “It’s not the best game to play after a final. The final is more than a game because of tension, pressure, emotions and that normally pays a price.
“It was really difficult. I think it doesn’t matter the quality of a game when the emotion is so high, the tempo is so high and the players are so fantastic in their commitment, with the referee so good in letting the game flow.
“West Ham are the best team playing the way they play, there’s no doubt about it and the players gave everything to cope with it.”
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This post was last modified on 05/03/2015