Jose Mourinho hopes Diego Costa's winning goal against
Norwich City will prove to be a turning point for the Chelsea
striker.
The Spain forward has come in for growing criticism after
struggling to recapture the form he showed during his club's
march to the Premier League title last season.
Costa again missed a number of chances against Norwich
before securing Chelsea's first win in four league games with
the 64th-minute winner in a 1-0 success at Stamford Bridge
on Saturday -- only his third goal in 11 Premier League
appearances this season.
Chelsea manager Mourinho admitted his player has been
feeling the strain, but believes Costa can now begin to put a
difficult period behind him.
"When you don't score goals, you get heavier," said Mourinho.
"Every game that you don't score goals, you get 5kg more.
You get heavy and the pressure is there.
"In the first half he (Costa) misses two chances. The second
one, in the last minute, is really a big one. So it was important
for him. Important for us, the result and the goal, but I think
also for him."
The Portuguese boss added: "He's working well, he's a happy
guy, he tries everything. He's positive, so if I had to choose
somebody to score the winning goal, I would go exactly with
him.
"Everything is connected. I think when you are full of
confidence it's not just about goals, it's also about -- I don't
know if it's the right word -- but fluent.
"You are fluent in your decisions, you choose well your
movements, you choose well the number of touches, when to
hold, when to keep possession, when to touch, first touch.
"When you lose confidence, you lose this fluent game. Yes, he
can do much better, but again, yes, one goal is very
important."
And the manager believes Costa is benefitting from showing
more discipline on the field.
"He's doing well. He had three yellow cards in 16, 17 official
matches in the season.
"He's not responding, basically, to provocations. Little things
are the salt and the pepper of football. He's behaving well and
everything is fine."
Chelsea remain in the bottom half of the table with a third of
the season gone yet while Mourinho has written off his side's
title hopes, he still believes they can finish in the top four.
"We have to go game after game. But I said already in the
press conference yesterday that the fourth position for me is
not an impossible mission," he explained.
"If you ask me the title, I would say impossible mission.
Maybe Tom Cruise can do it," Mourinho joked.
"It's complicated because you have to recover points from
four candidates.
"But to recover positions and points to teams that normally
are in the middle of the table and to grab one of the ones that
go up and will also have a little bit of a collapse for sure,
because everybody will have.
"The fourth position is a difficult position but a possible
target. But match after match. Now is Maccabi (Tel Aviv in
the Champions League) and we hope we can win and maybe
the Porto-Dynamo result allows us to qualify before the last
match, which would be good.
"But if we have to win the last match at home, let's go for
that."
Norwich manager Alex Neil was frustrated his side were
denied a first-half penalty when Willian challenged Robbie
Brady, claiming it was the latest in a succession of decisions
to go against his team.
"I generally don't say anything about referees because they
have a hard enough job but it is getting extremely frustrating,"
he said.
"When you are one of the smaller clubs it becomes extremely
difficult to accept because those minor decisions mean a great
deal to us as we might not have five or six opportunities to
score.
"So when you do feel you deserve a penalty you would like it
to be awarded. That is where the frustration lies."
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