Jose Mourinho slams unnamed player as Chelsea succumb to surprise Crystal Palace defeat

Jose Mourinho slammed an unnamed player for their performance during Chelsea's dismal start to the season continued with a surprise 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea are already eight points behind leaders Manchester City after goals from Bakary Sako and Joel Ward made it a miserable 100th home game in charge for Mourinho.

Radamel Falcao grabbed his first Blues' goal to briefly equalise for the hosts, but, while Mourinho was ambiguous in his individual criticism, he was fuming at the poverty in his side's performance.

"I'm not happy," Mourinho said.

"I cannot say that I had 11 players performing at the same time.

"Two or three of them their individual performance was far from good.

"I blame myself for not changing one of them. I kept him in the game for 90 minutes.

"When I made the third change I realise I needed a fourth and I don't have a fourth."

Mourinho declined to reveal the name of the fourth player.

Branislav Ivanovic's performances have been placed under scrutiny, but the Portuguese would not comment on the right-back's display.

He added: "I'm not going to analyse individual form, individual performances.

"If a player is not performing there are two ways of looking at it. One way is that I trust so much the player that I'm going to wait for the improvement.

"Or even trusting the players arrives a moment where you think I have to change. I can go both ways."

Mourinho was keen to praise Palace for their performance as they pulled off their first win at Stamford Bridge in 33 years.

But he was unhappy his side were not awarded a first-half penalty after Kurt Zouma's shirt was tugged by Connor Wickham, which he believes would have changed the course of the game.

"The first thought is to Palace," Mourinho said. "They come with everything. They were lucky but they deserve the luck.

"My team, I think we deserved more. I don't want to say we deserved to win, because it's not true.

"The referee did a big mistake. Clear penalty with the result 0-0 and obviously with influence in the result.

"The one with Zouma that I watch at half-time on television. It was a clear penalty. (But) I prefer to go in this order, when I say Crystal Palace first."