Jose Mourinho is prepared to ditch Chelsea's tradition of open, attacking football if it means snatching the Premiership title.
The new Blues manager has insisted he will not bow to outside pressures to change the functional brand of play he employed to clinch victory over Manchester United at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
Chelsea's billionaire owner Roman Abramovich is known to admire attacking football, citing lack of entertainment as one of the reasons for disposing of Claudio Ranieri in the summer, but there was little fluency in the 1-0 success as Chelsea defended their lead in the second-half.
Mourinho's defensive tactics took many people by surprise but he admitted: "We defended deeply. That's football. "I told the players at half-time that they have to play like I want, not like the press, the opponents or the crowd want. They did it and we got the three points.
"We can show our quality sometimes but on other occasions you have to forget what other people want from you and play the best way to win. United had the ball but had just one chance. We had more chances than them."
Pressure
Mourinho told the London Evening Standard: "We could have had more control of the football and kept possession better but there's always a lot of pressure on players making their debuts. We always fight to win and play as a team.
"I promised people that we have a wonderful group of players and great characters and they showed that on Sunday.
"I want to prove that I deserve to be at a big club in a big country and to stay here for many years."
Captain John Terry also believes Chelsea will soon begin to look more stylish.
He said: "People may think we should have played more football (against United) but the three points are all that matters. In any other game we would have pushed forward more but there were some tired legs at the back."
Meanwhile, Republic of Ireland manager Brian Kerr is ready to field '17million Chelsea winger Damien Duff against Bulgaria in Dublin tomorrow night even though the former Blackburn star was not involved on Sunday.
Mourinho believes the player - a firm favourite with previous boss Ranieri - needs to overcome a " mental block" following his recuperation from a dislocated shoulder.
Kerr admitted: "His mind is on the injury and he needs a couple of rough tackles to be able to forget about it."
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BORING! CHELSKI AND IT'S MANAGER. THERE WAS A PIECE IN THE TIMES ABOUT MR ABRAMOVICH - VERY INTERESTING!
You`ll do anything then? go back to your rich mans sewage farm!
Hm..there's them that talk about it and them that do it. Even wenger wasn't this arrogant. Please dig this story out next May.
i like him so much...very confident.....and usually sore losers(MU fans) will say he is arrogant..
Lets assume that this story is true, we all know what newspaper reporters are like....????
So what happened to the sexy football, and the fantastic squad that can rule world football mmmm....let me see they have just played one of their main contenders at home who are severely understrength and we are played of the park, didn't deserve the win, Drogba claims he's is not fit, problems with duff/cole aah welcome to the real world.
He now realizes that he has to go back to how he won the EUFA & CL trophies by cheating instructing his players to fall over (feirrera admitted same). so everyone beware and be warned!
Good luck Chelsea but quite honestly I think Arsenal are going to achieve a back to back title which by the way will IRRITATE all the Man United connections,moreso they will reach an unbeaten tally in the league THAT WILL NEVER be emulated!!!United in the meantime will struggle to win anything this season!!!
Come on Pete - stop sitting on the fence...what's your point here? Why are you so bothered about us?
Well in Pete, appears the Rags don't like it when a blue appears 'on the dark side' Big bird etc always have their say and 99% of England know Arsenal will do the business again this year, followed by Chelski then Liverpool/Rag's
Wooo hold on there desperate dan, everyones welcome on the premier football site!! The only problem with you bitters is you come on here and talk about other teams not your own. Now thats understandable and if I was ever in your position( and God forbid I`ll ever know what that hell feels like) I`d probably go on a site of the only team you call its rivals( pity we don`t feel that way)and talk about other teams too!!!!