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A Branislav Ivanovic winner at Villa Park saw Chelsea go seven points clear of Manchester City with 14 games left to play. The match itself was quite even, with Chelsea taking the lead through Eden Hazard before Aston Villa equalised through Jores Okore.
The win saw the Londoners move seven points ahead of second placed Manchester City. Speaking after the result, Blues boss Jose Mourinho insisted that the league title is far from decided at this stage.
"Seven points means seven points, we have 14 matches to go," said Mourinho. "We are speaking about 42 points to play for and in 42, we have a lead of seven. I think it's nothing. I would say in another league – done. In the Premier League, I would say far from done because the Premier League is the only league where any team can take points from the top teams.”
"You go to other leagues and the teams from the second part of the table, they play the top teams and they lose, they lose easily with big results. We have 14 matches left and that’s a long way to go."
Villa praised by Mourinho
The Blues manager was all praise for Aston Villa, who ended a run of six Premier League matches and almost 11 hours without scoring with Jores Okore’s early second half goal.
"A team with so many good players is not a team in trouble,” he added. “The teams in trouble are the ones without good players and Aston Villa’s is a squad filled with good players.
"They are a very good side, so for us to win here is very important – obviously it’s very difficult. The result says everything. I knew that they had a reaction and my players couldn’t cope. The good thing was that after that we had our reaction, we found our stability and we started going forwards.”
"We went to try to win and, when we scored the second goal, after that I don’t remember a dangerous situation in our goal. We could control with stability."
