Mourinho blasts offside call

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho is in “no doubt” his side were wrongly disallowed a valid goal in their draw with Blackburn.

The Blues lost ground on leaders Arsenal after Howard Webb controversially ruled out Salomon Kalou’s second-half effort for offside.

The decision sparked uproar on the bench with Mourinho and assistant Steve Clarke berating the fourth official Peter Walton and remonstrating with him to look at the touchline TV screen.

It ended with Webb having to ask Mourinho to calm down but TV replays suggested the Chelsea manager had a good case as the goal looked to be perfectly legal.

Mourinho told Setanta Sports: “Everybody at home, everybody in the stadium had no doubts, I had no doubts from the place where I was.

“I cannot explain, I don’t want to try to explain. Of course I don’t want to speak with him (Webb), I told him what I had to tell and what I told him was I am waiting for his phone call tomorrow to apologise.”

Mourinho admitted, however, that it was Webb’s linesman rather than the referee who was culpable.

“The referee is the boss of his team and he makes the final decision but when the linesman stands there with the flag in the air I suppose he has to follow the man that normally should be in the better position than him so I think it’s the linesman’s decision.

“I think he should come out and explain. The phone call tomorrow to apologise from Mr (Keith) Hackett means nothing because we can wave the points goodbye.

“We deserved to win the game against a defensive and well-organised team. But only the linesman can say why it was disallowed.

“It is obvious when you score a goal that everyone celebrates and the red and black team is crying. Somebody decided it is not a goal, I think we scored a goal and I think the result should be 1-0 because we scored a goal.

“They have a great goalkeeper, they fought a lot to try to keep their clean sheet but they didn’t. Chelsea is a team that must win and we didn’t.”

Blackburn boss Mark Hughes insisted the officials had got the decision right but preferred to shift the focus to his side’s defensive efforts.

“The lad is offside at the time (of the pass),” said Hughes.

“I’m sure the Chelsea bench were up in tandem but you hope to get a break in the game and if we’d have conceded then it would have been very difficult to get back.

“The qualities we showed after that proved the strength we have here.

“It’s a great spirit within the group, the refused to go under.

“At the end of the game John Terry and everybody seemed to be in our box and we showed a real mentality at that stage.”

Rovers goalkeeper Brad Friedel believes his team-mates will be content with the result but was not happy with the method.

“We’d have taken a draw at the start of the day but we didn’t enjoy how we played. Today’s game, out of all the games this season in the Premier League and in Europe, was the worst we’ve played.”