Joy for Boruc as Mourinho whinges about gamesmanship

Artur Boruc shrugged aside a six week absence to help Bournemouth to a 1-0 win over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

After a lively start to the season a chronic run of injuries and hard luck stories have dogged the south coast outfit in recent weeks and looked like derailing their first ever campaign in the top flight.

With Chelsea showing signs of rediscovering their form tonight’s defeat was a devastating blow to Jose Mourinho as he watched the current champions lose for the eighth time in the league this season.

The game looked set to end goal-less until Glenn Murray headed into the Chelsea net to give the visitors full points and take them to just two points behind Mourinho’s side.

Rather than discuss his own side’s failings the former Real Madrid boss felt that a refereeing decision was the reason for his side’s defeat.

“We dominated the game but one refereeing mistake cost us,” Mourinho claimed. “It was a clear handball, with the result at 0-0, but that’s part of the game. In the first half we were not aggressive enough. We had a couple of shots and chances, but in the second half we were much more aggressive.

“We tried in the period where we were stronger but this is the moment when they scored the goal and with five minutes to go with a team that was defending, some people call it intelligent, some people call it lack of play.

“You know, time-outs, stop of the play, asking for a medical department to go in to drink for a minute like in basketball but they did very well.”

In contrast Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe was delighted by the win saying: “We’ve believed we’re on the right path. You look at our recent games and we’ve done really well, performed well in several of them but haven’t got the wins we feel we’ve deserved,” he said.

“Today was a different kind of performance from us. We’ve had to show a different side to our game but I’m so pleased for the players for all their hard work this season.

“First half, it was quite even. We were well in it. Second half we’ve played under pressure and we’ve had to dig in, we’ve had to defend, put our bodies on the line. I thought we were magnificent defensively.

“Our keeper played a big part in that. There’s been a lot of question marks about our defending this season but we’ve answered a few questions today.”