Mourinho praises "amazing" Essien
Mourinho enjoyed today's match against Man City
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Sunday, 20, Aug 2006 09:37
Jose Mourinho has lavished praise upon Michael Essien after the midfielder played a starring role in Chelsea's 3-0 win over Manchester City at Stamford Bridge.
Although the Ghanaian was not among the goals, the Portuguese boss explained that he was impressed with his work rate and overall contribution, especially in a Blues team devoid of regular enforcer Claude Makelele.
"With two players in midfield, he had a big area to cover. But he has so much energy, I have to control his game from outside because if I don't control his position on the pitch, he will disappear from the places where I want him to be," he said of Essien.
"His energy was amazing and he played well defensively. He had a shot for a great save, he had an assist for (Frank) Lampard's shot. He played really well," Mourinho added.
The Premiership champions got the defence of their crown off to a great start with England internationals John Terry and Lampard opening the scoring in the first-half before Didier Drogba upstaged league debutant Andriy Shevchenko to get the decisive goal.
Mourinho had earlier expressed concern that Chelsea's streamlined squad would struggle in the opening league fixtures thanks to a large proportion of the squad participating in the latter stages of the World Cup, but he said he was happy with his team's overall fitness today.
He said: "We didn't just play well, we played very well for 80 minutes but ten minutes in the beginning of the second half when the quality of our game went a little bit down.
"Defensively we were perfect. The intensity of our pressing was very high and the quality of our passing game was very good. We scored three goals and could have scored four or five. We dominated and beat a good team," the boss commented.
Chelsea play Middlesbrough and Blackburn Rovers away in their next two games, fixtures that were both lost last season, and Mourinho admitted that he is unsure "whether we have enough players in condition to play three matches in a week".
City boss Stuart Pearce meanwhile was left to reflect on an at times promising but ultimately fruitless performance, which also saw Italian hitman Bernardo Corradi receive two yellow cards on his first game for the club.
"Our season is not going to be shaped by results at Stamford Bridge, it's going to be shaped more by results against teams that are going to be near us. That does not make me feel any better coming away from here, but everyone scrapped away pretty well," he admitted.
"If you go down to ten men, you have a problem. I thought Corradi did pretty well and was very competitive when he was on, and we have got to lift the confidence in the side for Wednesday evening," the ex-England international added.