Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has declared that he missed the Premier League while managing abroad following Wednesday evening's 2-1 win over Aston Villa.

The ex-Real Madrid boss said that he prefers the hard-fought victories in the English top flight to his former team's dominance in Spain.

"In matches at the Bernebau, Real Madrid win every match and usually very comfortably," Mourinho told reporters after the game.

"This is what I missed about the Premier League. This was hard."

The Portuguese coach went on to admit that Villa deserved a point from the match, but insisted that they committed a lot of fouls.

"Maybe they deserved a point in the end, it wouldn't have been unfair," he added.

"They have their style which is not my style. They have a special player in [Christian] Benteke and they put long balls into him - he makes a lot of fouls as do their defenders so it's difficult to have a game of quality with them."

Benteke cancelled out an early own goal from Antonio Luna, but Branislav Ivanovic headed home a Chelsea winner in the 73rd minute.