Stoke City vs Chelsea match report: More misery for Jose Mourinho as Blues are dumped out of League Cup on penalties

There was a time not so long ago when Tony Pulis would resort to scuffing up the centre of the Britannia Stadium pitch in preparation for Jose Mourinho, by getting his players to run on it in long studs on a Friday afternoon. And still Stoke’s players would find Chelsea unplayable. Mourinho’s players would go around the edges to exploit them. They’d lost once to the side in 17 encounters before last night.

It is in that context that the exit from the Capital One Cup should be judged, rather than the mellifluous Mourinho prose, employed in the Britannia Stadium press room after Eden Hazard’s missed penalty had sent his side out and made a hero of the goalkeeper Jack Butland - who, after some ups and downs on his journey through the foothills of football, is beginning to make good on his promise.

The very fact that Mourinho did not blow, but came armed with a winsome smile and his bag of puzzles – suggesting Diego Costa had been hospitalised with a rib injury because he’d “punched himself” – seemed to throw a gloss on the outcome. That, and his side’s excellent first half: a 45 minutes of football as good as any from them all season, written through with confidence, panache and a high attacking line which suggested no fear.

But they could not see it through and the forced smile doesn’t disguise that Mourinho looks ready to blow at any time. There was an awkward moment at the end of the press conference when Trevor Sinclair, the former England international who was summarising for BBC Radio 5, asked a question and Mourinho, not recognising him, was suspicious. “Who are you?” he asked, though Sinclair’s question had been a dolly about how he “lifted” the players. “Yeh I know,” Mourinho said as Sinclair introduced himself. He proceeded to tell him that because he was “one of the guys who was there” as an ex-player, he might offer some professional instruction to his “colleagues” about how it is more of a crime to play poorly and lose than to “play well and lose” as his side had done.

Those “colleagues” were undoubtedly the Sky Sports pundits for whom Mourinho can currently barely supress his contempt, though his sense of victimhood, where their analysis is concerned, is wholly overblown. Mourinho also conjured a Manuel Pellegrini football philosophy: that the way you play is more important than winning. When what has actually made him a champion, of course, is his cussed resolve to win at all costs, even on a foul, godforsaken Tuesday night in the Potteries when this ground looked like a graveyard for any manager whose job prospects are questioned.

His interpretation of events included emphasis on how – as he told Sinclair - his players “didn’t make mistakes” and had managed to “participate” well. “How many touches?” There was materially less focus on a second half in which they struggled to create, before relying on Loic Remy ‘s 90th minute equaliser to take things into extra time. And how, once there, they had drawn a further blank, despite the dismissal early in extra time of Phil Bardsley - with no complaints - for a second bookable foul.

That put Chelsea’s players into the lottery of the shoot-out, for which Mark Hughes’ players were mentally and technically very well prepared. Asmir Begovic did not come close to stopping a spot kick before Hazard stepped up for the tenth of the shoot-out and Butland delivered his heroics, raising his hand to dispel Hazard’s kick having seemed to commit himself with a low dive. “He made a couple in the first half when Chelsea were the best team,” said Hughes, so much a subsidiary part of the night’s script that he was in and out of the press room in the time it took him to answer two questions.

Stoke were very much a part of the equation, though. Ryan Shawcross’ contribution on his return from the back trouble which has kept him out all season demonstrated how much he has been missed. The Peter Odemwingie indiscipline which gave Chelsea their redemptive late equaliser was unfortunate because they had looked increasingly confident and untroubled before that.

And then there was the contribution of Jon Walters - the best player of the 90 minutes, running expressively at Mourinho’s back four and employing one of his favoured techniques – spinning around onto the ball from a position with back to goal – to put Stoke ahead. His strike was precise, sending the ball in off the underside of the bar, as Gary Cahill backed off and allowed him the split second to look up and take aim.

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That was tough on Chelsea, who deserved to be well head at the interval and the game out of sight, with a strong starting line-up. They thought they had an early advantage when John Terry turned in from Willian, only to be ruled offside: rightly so. Take your pick of the opportunities Chelsea had created by then. Hazard deconstructed his tag as under-performer-in-chief, spinning away from Charlie Adam in the centre of the pitch and surging up-field before feeding Costa in the inside left channel. The striker pulled the ball across goal from a tight angle and it deflected goalwards off Philipp Wollscheid, with Glenn Whelan making the block on the line.

Mourinho went for broke in the second half, throwing on the midfielder Kenedy for Rahman and going three at the back. But his players’ decision-making and imagination revealed that same struggle to locate the confidence and authority they have misplaced somewhere. Substitute Bertrand Traore’s long range effort, millimetres over was as close as they came.

Progress would have been a bulwark against the sense that everything is unravelling. Instead, an encounter against Jurgen Klopp – the coming man – and Liverpool is only three days away. ‘I sleep at nights. I feel fantastic,’ Mourinho said, his smile and smooth delivery fooling no-one.

Stoke: Butland, Bardsley, Shawcross, Wollscheid, Muniesa (Wilson 49), Whelan, Adam, Diouf, Afellay (Shaqiri 76), Arnautovic, Walters (Odemwingie 90)

Chelsea: Begovic, Zouma, Cahill, Terry, Rahman (Kenedy 70), Ramires (Traore 80), Mikel, Willian, Oscar, Hazard, Costa (Remy 33)

Man of the match Walters

Match rating 7/10.

Referee K Friend (Leicestershire).

Attendance 24,886.