Jose Mourinho warns Chelsea they must cut out sloppy mistakes

Jose Mourinho has warned his Chelsea side that they must cut out the sloppy mistakes in defence if they are to stand any chance of winning the Premier League title this season.

The Blues were sent crashing to a surprise 3-2 defeat at Stoke City on Saturday as Oussama Assaidi’s dramatic late winner handed the Potters all three points at the Britannia Stadium and left Chelsea five points behind leaders Arsenal.

And Mourinho, whose side next face Crystal Palace in the league before a trip to Arsenal, has demanded an improvement from his players in the coming weeks.

“There is no other way than working hard,” said Mourinho.

“There is fantastic evolution in the three players who are playing behind the striker, all of them. They produce, they work amazingly well for the team, they create chances and they score goals.

“There is a big evolution in this, that is why the team is playing so well, but we need more than that.

“If we arrived at half-time at Stoke leading 3-0 or 4-0, everyone would say we played fantastically well the same way we did against Sunderland, but at Sunderland we let the opponent come into the game and we did this even worse against Stoke.

“Playing well is not enough. We have to score more goals and we have to stop the individual mistakes at the back because mistakes cost us goals and points.”