Jose Mourinho does not like to lose.
That much is evident but the Chelsea boss certainly needs to get used to the fact that sides will ‘raise their game’ against his team if he wants to stop it happening again.
After seeing his Blues crash to their first defeat of the season against Newcastle United, Mourinho had a fair few gripes and chief among them was the fact that sides seemed to put slightly more effort in against the league leaders and gave other sides a break when they visited.
Now whilst this does not seem to be beyond the realms of possibility, it is an argument that he has used before.
During his time at Real Madrid, Mourinho moaned that teams gave it their all against his side and when Barcelona came to visit, they took a break, gave other players a rest and rolled over and handed them the three points.
Now whilst that was slightly harsh in all but the case of a pre Diego Simeone Atletico Madrid, the Special One seems to think that history is repeating itself.
Manchester City, according to the Chelsea manager, get an easy ride, whereas teams dig in against his men and make it almost impossible for them to break down.
Well you can draw two conclusions from this.
Chelsea firstly need to learn to break these sides down should they want to become title winners and secondly, Mourinho should be used to this by now, and almost prepared for it.
Manchester United faced it for years, Chelsea 1.0 under Mourinho had the same problem. It is what comes with being the best in the league.
Another hard fact is that this Manchester City side – especially this season – are weaker and can be got at, so sides will have a go and hope to nick a point. With Chelsea, not so much.
The best hope seems to be stifling them and stopping the likes of Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas working the ball to Diego Costa.
In the last ten minutes at St James Park, we saw a return to the Chelsea of old, with Didier Drogba coming on up top and balls being thrown, crossed and placed into the box with urgency.
Chelsea and Mourinho have a plan B. It is time they stopped moaning about teams trying to scrape a point or nick all three and started using it.
Chelsea fans. Is this something that comes with being league leaders? Do you have to learn to break sides like Newcastle down? Let us know your thoughts below, become a guest blogger or tweet us @LaFootyettes.