Mourinho: Chelsea did not deserve Palace defeat

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho believes his side did not deserve to lose their Premier League clash with Crystal Palace.

Joel Ward scored a dramatic late winner in a 2-1 victory at Stamford Bridge, subjecting Chelsea to their first home league defeat since April 2014.

Palace were good value for the three points and Mourinho bemoaned the performance of some of his players, as well as an unsuccessful first-half penalty appeal for a Connor Wickham challenge on Kurt Zouma.

“Congratulations to Palace,” he told BBC Sport. “It’s a fantastic result for them and a very good performance.

“We didn’t deserve to lose. But Palace gave us a very difficult game.

“The result should be a draw, which would still be bad for us. We did enough not to lose.

“We had good opportunities, a huge penalty appeal at 0-0.

“My two centre-backs and keeper played a very good game. We created lots of chances but we had a couple of players who were not in the game.

“When the team is not consistent and there aren’t 10 players on the pitch at a certain level it’s difficult.

“I said before the season, it’d be more difficult to win matches against non-title candidates as they all have good players and good teams – like West Ham winning at Liverpool [also on Saturday].”