After dismantling Newcastle on Saturday on the back of Eden Hazard’s hat-trick to move top of the table for the first time this season, Mourinho’s remark had even more of a hollow ring to it.

But just three days later Chelsea were made to pay for what Mourinho felt was a lack of a killer instinct after being held to a 1-1 draw by relegation-threatened West Brom.

Chelsea were poised to move four points clear of Arsenal on the back of centre-back Branislav Ivanovic’s injury-time strike in the first half at The Hawthorns.

Victor Anichebe, however, again emerged as a super sub nine days after coming off the bench to equalise in a 1-1 draw with Liverpool, as the Nigerian repeated the feat against Chelsea with a goal in the 87th minute.

When it was suggested this was a performance that proved his ’little horse’ tag, Mourinho said: “Yes. A ready team, a complete team kills this game. 2-0, goodbye, but we didn’t.”

Mourinho added: “For 60 minutes there was only one team, and that team couldn’t kill the game, especially in the first 15 minutes of the second half.

“For (the next) 10 minutes the game was poor, and then for the last 20 minutes only one team and that team fought a lot to get the goal and the point, and in the end they deserve it.

“In the first half we had complete control without creating many chances - Petr (Cech) not making one save, their strikers with not one shot.

“In the second half they opened and gave us the space we didn’t have in the first half, but we were not strong enough to kill the game.”

For Albion head coach Pepe Mel, whose side are back out of the bottom three, he admitted this was his team’s best performance from his five games in charge.

“I’m proud of my players,” he said.

“In the first half we defended well, limited Chelsea’s chances, and in the second we counter-attacked well and showed a good mentality.

“If we had scored earlier then we would have won the match, so for me this was our best performance against a good Chelsea team who are top.”