Clive Rose
Jose Mourinho has slammed his "complacent" Chelsea players and demanded an instant Champions League response.
The Blues' manager is ready to ring the changes against visitors Schalke in the Champions League on Wednesday, after accusing some of his team of arrogance and going through the motions on Tyneside.
Mourinho said: "When you win a lot, you cannot forget why you win. You cannot think you win because you have a nice shirt or are in a good run or a lucky moment.
"If you think like that, you're in trouble. You can never forget why you are winning matches.
"I don't want my team to be reactive. This is not the philosophy we are working on, and I'm not happy with the way we faced that match. It's as simple as that.
"My teams can lose matches - they are never 'unbeatable' - but I don't like us losing when we do not have the determination or ambition we want us to have.
"That was the case at Newcastle."
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Mourinho, who confirmed thigh injury victim Fernando Torres will miss the Schalke game and Saturday's home clash with West Brom, added: "A football player is a human being, and human beings make mistakes.
"Sometimes they don't have the best approach. When you win three, four, five matches, they forget why they won and think they win just because they are good.
"But there are many other ingredients in football that make you a consistent winner. For the three big matches before Newcastle - against Schalke, Manchester City and Arsenal - you know you have to be at the top of your level, and you are at the top of your concentration.
"And suddenly you get a match where you become a little bit complacent. It's the mistake not just of football players, but human-beings.
"I didn't pick it up before the game.
"Maybe I was also influenced by the way they grew up so fast as a team, and the way they could play so fast to compete in that week and with the pressure we put on ourselves in the Champions League.
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"They reacted so well under that pressure - winning six crucial points for us, great performances in big matches, dominant performances - so maybe I was also caught by surprise.
"But the only difference is, during the first half, it looked like they were not feeling it and I was feeling it."
Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, David Luiz, Juan Mata and Eden Hazard could all be omitted from Wednesday night's line-up, although Mourinho insisted: "It's not about changing 11 players and I don't want you to see the changes as somebody paying for the defeat against Newcastle.
"It's simply that I read the game, and I read it once, twice, three times, and you try to analyse the way people perform. It is not to punish people - completely far from that.
"We just want to try and get the people just to win the game."
And Mourinho warned his Chelsea side to beware Schalke - despite their crushing win in Gelsenkirchen last month.
Chelsea's 3-0 victory in the Veltins Arena put them top of Group E and wiped out impact of the shock home reverse at the hands of Basel in their opening group game.
But Mourinho knows the Bundesliga outfit are unbeaten in their last six away games in all competitions, including victory in Switzerland.
“It will not be an easy win, not at all,” said Mourinho. “No. No, no, no, no. First of all, their record away is very good. Not just in the Bundesliga but also in European competitions.
“They have very good results away, which means they feel much more comfortable playing away than at home. That’s a point, a clear point backed by the statistics.
“The other situation is they are a very physical team, which is not the case with us.
“I don’t know really what they want from the group phase: if they are going to try everything to finish first, or just to try and finish second and progress in the Champions League.
“They may try and win the game or be very defensive, playing for a point and get through in their last two games.
“We have to be ready for either approach but they are a difficult opponent and the result, 0-3 in Germany, means nothing at this point.”
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