We had taken the lead through Diego Costa on 18 minutes but three Tottenham goals before the break and another soon after it had the hosts in control. The irrepressible Eden Hazard got us back in the game and Cesar Azpilicueta nearly made it 4-3 before Spurs stretched their lead again rendering John Terry’s late goal nothing more than a consolation.

In his assessment of the game afterwards Mourinho acknowledged some difficulties at the back, as well as our own impressive forward play, but like at Southampton he also said a key decision had gone against us when we were not awarded a penalty after Jan Vertonghen handled in the box with the Blues 1-0 up…

‘I can go in two directions,’ he explained. ‘I can go in a direction saying we made some defensive mistakes, we had some individual problems in our defensive structure and that, plus bad luck with every rebound and deflected shot, meant we conceded five goals which is something out of context.

‘When you concede five goals it’s difficult to get a positive result, but in spite of that we scored three and we had chances and lots of initiative to try to score more.

‘I can go in another direction and say what we all know, which is with the result at 1-0 one clear action could make it 2-0 and normally would mean the result is completely different.

‘We don’t need clarification when we have no doubts. When the situation is not clear the discussion is good because everyone can have a different opinion, but against Southampton there was no discussion and again today there was no discussion.

‘At the end of the day we are speaking about two matches – six points – and we’ve had one point out of six when two crucial decisions would give us six points. What matters are the points. In five days we had two incredible decisions that punished us in a very hard way. It’s difficult to accept.

‘The only thing we can do is to work and play well which we are doing all the time, and today we did again. We made defensive mistakes but when we had the ball we were always dangerous, we created and we had initiative.

‘We are going to do exactly what we have been doing until now knowing clearly that in 20 league matches the most offensive team and the team with more creative players in attacking areas have had two penalties in 20 matches.’

It is the first time a Chelsea side under Mourinho has let in more than three goals

‘Conceding five goals can happen, not five times a season but you have a bad game, an unlucky situation when people are more tired, and it can happen. We could have scored four or five or six.

‘Both teams were really tired, the last part of the game was broken so there could have been more goals.’

The manager made three changes to the side that started at Southampton on Sunday

‘We did what everybody else did, which is rotate two or three players. You have squads but at the end of the day you have players that give a certain kind of performance that you trust and you know they’re going to give you – people like Fabregas, Matic and Hazard. It’s normal.’

The majestic Eden Hazard was again the most fouled player on the pitch

‘People in love with football in this country must be in love with Eden Hazard. The way match after match he is being punished by opponents and not being protected by referees, maybe one day we don’t have Eden Hazard [in this country].

‘It’s one, two, three, four, five, 10 fouls, aggressive fouls. They kick and kick and kick, and the kid resists because he is a fantastic kid, strong physically and he is very honest in the way he plays, but I think this is another problem.’

- A clip of Jose Mouinho talking to Chelsea TV after the game can be viewed below, with the full interview available now via Video on Demand, subject to Fan Club Plus membership.