FA CUP CARNAGE
Man City lose 2-0 to Middlesbrough Chelsea beaten 4-2 by Bradford
SHELL- SHOCKED Jose Mourinho claimed he was “ashamed” after seeing his side dumped out of the FA Cup fourth round by brave Bradford City.
And after seeing his stars humbled 4-2 by Phil Parkinson’s League One heroes the Chelsea chief Mourinho declared his stars should also feel the same after admitting defeat was a “sporting disgrace”. Mourinho saw his side toss away a 2-0 lead after Gary Cahill and Ramires had put his Premier League leaders in control of the tie.
A goal from Jon Stead just before the break and second half strikes by Filipe Morais, Andy Halliday and Mark Yeates sent Bradford marching into the fifth round.
Mourinho revealed the defeat was one of his worst as a manager and said later: “I feel happy for Bradford. “I could find my bad feelings with the game and with the result. I could find space to find happiness for them.
“I’m honest and I’m happy for them. But on another side I feel ashamed and I think my players should feel exactly the same as I feel.
“This is the beauty of football and the FA Cup because in not many sports the best players can lose against a team or a player with a completely different potential.
“Frustration is not the right word, embarrassed is more appropriate. I repeat the words from my press conference that if we lose, it’s a disgrace.
“It’s a sports disgrace obviously, but it’s a disgrace. In this competition this happens to every team now and again.
“For me it’s a first time and it doesn’t happen to Chelsea a lot. It’s unacceptable to lose to a team from a lower league.
Impressive
“If I was you I’d be critical of the Chelsea manager and players, but not just that. I think Bradford don’t deserve to be forgotten and everyone focus on negative Chelsea – they deserve all the credit after such an impressive result.”
Mourinho made eight changes from the team that drew 1-1 with Liverpool in the Capital One Cup semi-final first leg – but the Blues coach insisted his team was good enough to win.
“The team I selected was a good team and the only player that comes from the youth football as a young kid is [Andreas] Christensen. But he did well, we didn’t lose because of him.
“I think the kid did his job very well and the other players are players that have to be ready to play for Chelsea and be ready for any game.”
Bradford boss Phil Parkinson revealed the victory celebrations after the fairytale win were “surreal”.
He said: “It’s only slowly sinking in! It felt surreal at the end because to score four goals here is a great feeling.
“It was a great performance from the lads. We always carried a threat going forward. Being 2-0 down wasn’t in the dream but we showed real character against world class players.
“We stuck to how we wanted to play even at 2-0 down and our heads didn’t go down. The honesty and discipline of the players was magnificent.”
Parkinson revealed Mourinho tried to shake his hand after Bradford went 4-2 up with three minutes still to go.
“Yes, he came to me with three and a half minutes to go but I did not want to get drawn into that.
“With the world-class players they have, they easily could have scored another and I just wanted to see out the game first.”
He added: “This tops reaching the Capital One Cup Final for me. Beating Aston Villa in the semi-final of the League Cup at their place was massive – but the magnitude of this, beating Chelsea on their own patch, makes this the best result of my managerial career. No doubt about that.”