Mourinho second best

Last updated : 21 January 2007 By Al Campbell
Liverpool bossed the game from start to finish and ran out comfortable 2-0 winners yesterday and after the match even Jose Mourinho had to admit the Reds were worthy winners.

"Liverpool are happy today and they deserve to be happy because they played well and deserved to win the game," said the Chelsea manager through gritted teeth.

"I was hoping we could get through the first 15 minutes without conceding because we had players playing out of position and those players would have gained confidence if we'd made a good start.

"When we went behind after a few minutes and then conceded another shortly after we knew it was going to be very difficult.

"Rafa isn't stupid and I'm not a magician. We had no central defenders and I knew two weeks ago that Crouch and Kuyt would play in this game. The defenders we have could have coped with Bellamy but they couldn't cope with Crouch winning the headers and Kuyt's strength holding the ball up.

"In other games of late we've been able to cope but I knew we'd have problems today and Liverpool did very well."