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Mourinho relishing 'tough' EPL

Cape Town - Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho overcame his first challenge in the English Premier League when his charges had to settle for a late winner against the stubborn Paul Lambert’s troops, Aston Villa, at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

Chelsea broke the deadlock through an own goal from defender Antonio Luna inside the first 10 minutes before the in-form Villa striker, Christian Benteke, levelled the matters on the stroke of half- time.

Serbian international defender Branislav Ivanovic’s 72nd minute header from Frank Lampard’s pin-point cross proved  to be adequate for the Blues who are now at the summit of the log standings after two games.

According to the Football411website, the Portuguese mentor gave credit to Lambert’s men and concluded that they ‘deserved’ a point out of the clash which also made him realise how much he missed the competition in the Premier League.

"In matches at the Bernabeu, Real Madrid win every match and usually very comfortably.

"This is what I missed about the Premier League. This was hard," said Mourinho.

"Maybe they (Villa) deserved a point in the end, it wouldn't have been unfair.

"They have their style which is not my style. They have a special player in Benteke and they put long balls into him - he makes a lot of fouls as do their defenders so it's difficult to have a game of quality with them.

The long ball game, you can't control. The game becomes ugly, but we fought a lot. The players tried to adapt and gave their life to get the three points.

"Sometimes you have to win on effort rather than quality."

Mourinho’s next tough assignment will be a trip to rivals Manchester United on Monday.

Kick-off is at 21:00 SA time.  
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