thats y i respect this man
• Mourinho humble in defeat
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho admitted his side's 3-0 defeat at Middlesbrough was the worst of his reign after a humbling afternoon on Teesside.
Goals from Fabio Rochemback, Stewart Downing and Aiyegbeni Yakubu condemned the reigning champions to just their third Barclays Premiership defeat in 64 attempts under the Portuguese and left the manager in philosophical mood.
'When you lose, it is always a bad day, especially when you don't lose a lot of times,' he said.
'In my time at Chelsea, this is the third defeat in the Premiership and you can say it was the worst.
'We lost last season to Manchester City 1-0 and we didn't deserve it; we lost this season at Manchester United 1-0 and we didn't deserve it; we lost today 3-0 - we deserved it.
'I think 3-0 is too much, of course it's too much. Of course they didn't play to score three goals. In the second half, they played with 10 defenders and they played in a strip of 20 metres.
'But the game is about 90 minutes, it's not about 45 minutes and overall, because of their attitude and because of the way the game was, because of the way they fought from the first minute, I think they deserved the three points and we deserved to be punished by the defeat.'
Mourinho insisted he was not surprised by Boro's performance despite their lowly league position, and admitted his side had inspired more than one fightback.
'Chelsea have been expert and giving new life to teams,' he said.
'It happened against (Real) Betis - they didn't win a game for a long time and they beat Chelsea; Everton were losing consecutive matches and were bottom of the league and we give them the points that starts their improvement, and today, it was the same.
'We have given life to people in very difficult circumstances.'
Boro were ahead with less than two minutes gone when Brazilian Rochemback claimed his first goal for the club, and after Chelsea rallied, Downing added a second on the stroke of half-time before Yakubu killed off any hopes of a second-half revival with a 68th-minute strike.
'We started very slowly and conceded a ridiculous goal in the first minute, and we had to get to the second half at 1-0, not 2-0,' said Mourinho.
'We conceded again a stupid goal and the third goal for me didn't matter. The third goal was a consequence of everything.
'The players were saying in the dressing room at 1-0, we should have had a penalty because it was handball in their box, and at 1-1, the result could have been different.
'But on that performance, I cannot speak about referees. Even if it's true - I want to see it on TV - if it's a penalty, it's just one.'