José Mourinho does not remember ever having it so good. When asked after this supremely comfortable win whether he has previously enjoyed such a dominant start to a campaign, the Chelsea manager hesitated and replied “maybe at Real Madrid” but, in fact, even in the 2011-12 season when he reached a record 100 points with the Spanish giants his side had not had as many points after 12 matches as Chelsea currently do.
Of the seven domestic titles that Mourinho has won in his golden career, including the two previous ones with Chelsea, only en route to the second one at Porto, over a decade ago, has his team amassed 32 points by the same stage of the campaign. All of which is to say: it is going to take something extraordinary for anyone to catch Chelsea this season.
West Bromwich Albion never looked capable of keeping up with them here. Alan Irvine’s side fell behind to Diego Costa’s 11th league goal of the season in the 11th minute and conceded another to Eden Hazard shortly afterwards. Claudio Yacob was then sent off for a reckless tackle on Costa and Ben Foster had to produce a series of improbable saves to keep the score down.
It was the sort of victory that could lead a team into complacency, which is perhaps why Mourinho is so eager to remind his players that the job is far from done. “We are playing fantastically well, we are getting results, but at the end of the season if you don’t manage to get some silverware then it is a frustration,” said Mourinho.
The Portuguese is not about to let his team be softened by the plaudits that they are rightly receiving for performances that are both effective and, at times, flamboyant. “It should have been 4-0 at half-time and it was 2-0,” said Mourinho. “Quickly, you have a negative. There are always negatives. If you dig, if you try to find it, you always find it.”
Chelsea’s players appear to be on message. Loïc Rémy said: “I think every player is conscious we can really win something this year but the most important thing is to stay focused about the same thing and don’t think the league is already won because I think it is a trap if we think that. We just have to try to win game after game and we know there are a lot of games coming so we have to be careful and play the same way we are playing at the minute.”
One negative that Mourinho was not looking for was a comment by one of his former charges at Real, Sergio Ramos, who suggested that Costa being declared unfit for Spain’s two matches during the international week betrayed a lack of commitment to his country.
“I know Sergio Ramos is a fantastic football player, but he is not a doctor,” said Mourinho. “My doctor and the doctor of the Spanish national team, they had the scans and they decided that the player was not in the condition to play. I am nobody – nobody – to go against it and I don’t think Sergio did a medicine Masters in the last couple of years to understand about it.”
Vicente del Bosque, the Spain manager, also wondered about the gravity of the injury that kept Cesc Fàbregas out of an international last week but Mourinho was dismissive of those concerns too. “I trust my doctor 100%. If Del Bosque doesn’t trust his doctor, that is his problem, not my problem. I speak with my doctor and I believe in what my doctor tells me. Nothing else.”
Man of the match Eden Hazard (Chelsea)