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Mourinho blames ‘individual mistakes’ as Spurs lose ground to Chelsea in top four race

Tottenham Hotspur lost ground in the race for the top four, losing 2-1 to Chelsea on Jose Mourinho’s latest return to Stamford Bridge.

After seeing a goal get chalked off against Manchester United on Monday, Olivier Giroud opened the scoring for Chelsea after just 15 minutes with a fine volleyed finish, the under used French strikers first Premier League goal of the season.

Left wing back Marcos Alonso doubled the Blues lead three minutes into the second half with a low strike from outside the area, before an Antonio Rudiger own goal in the dying stages gave the visitors late hope.

With Heung Min Son joining Harry Kane on the sidelines for the majority of the remainder of the season, Jose Mourinho said he was ‘proud’ of his players, blaming the defeat on their ‘individual mistakes’ which leaves the club four points behind the Champions League places.

“I think you are going to be very bored with me, because I think I’m going to be very repetitive. I’m going to say exactly the same words I told against Leipzig,” Mourinho told Match of the Day.

“I’m very proud of the players, they gave absolutely everything. We don’t have a striker. Our attacking players are not strikers and are in huge levels of fatigue, so very, very difficult for us. No tactical problems, [we were] completely in control of the space, punished by a couple of individual mistakes.

“In the last part of the game when Chelsea was scared of the 2-1 we didn’t have that presence, that power, we didn’t have that to do more than what we did.

“To create chances you need a target man or fast people that can interchange positions, you need a different dynamic to the team. We don’t have a striker and we have tired players, it’s as simple as that. We did very, very well. If we score before our opponent, I think we have a chance because we are well organised. But when they score before us and drop back it’s very, very difficult for us.

“A defeat is a defeat, but the good thing is, in the last seconds the players were still fighting for a result and that for me is a very important thing.”

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