Jose Mourinho has hailed members of his squad for adapting to a strategy that inherently allowed them to clinch the 2-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur and claim their first silverware of the season.
Goals from John Terry and Diego Costa secured victory for them, but Mou certainly made several unprecedented changes to the starting line-up. With Nemanja Matic being suspended for the game, Kurt Zouma started in the middle of the park, which allowed them to shape up in a very dynamic manner and seize control of the game after the break.
“My players strategically were fantastic,” Mourinho told Sky Sports.
“I have a certain concept about the final and obviously we cannot win every final but finals are not to play they are to win. We had a team not everyone was expecting but we had a team with a great balance, very compact in midfield, we pressed them very well.
“We didn’t have problems, they had a couple of chances. The free-kick (with which Christian Eriksen hit the bar) and nothing else, we controlled the game really well. We knew we would be dangerous on the counter, I was expecting more, but I think we played like we should play a final.”
The Blues played the early stages of the competition with quite a number of youth players, who did not feature in the final. Besides that, names like Courtois and Felipe Luis also missed out from the starting eleven last night, but Mourinho was equally keen on paying tribute to their roles in this particular achievement.
“I am going to be honest, for me man of the match is (Thibaut) Courtois who brought us here with a fantastic semi-final against Liverpool.
“Man of the match is Filipe Luis, he didn’t play today but played fantastic in two matches against Liverpool.
“Man of the match is (Andreas) Christensen, played so well against Shrewsbury. All these guys are man of the match for me and maybe more than John (Terry) and the lucky ones to play this final.
“I feel sorry for the ones that didn’t play so for me they are the men of the match because for me this is a team.”
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