Jose Mourinho has said that he finds it "difficult to believe" that Aston Villa are fighting relegation after his Chelsea side narrowly beat them at Villa Park.

A goal from Branislav Ivanovic won the game for the Blues, after Villa had scored their first Premier League goal in almost 11 hours through Jores Okore to cancel out Eden Hazard's early opener.

The Portuguese coach was full of praise for Villa and does not think that they should be fighting the drop with the quality of players that they have.

He told BBC Sport: "I like Aston Villa's team. They have very good players. It is difficult to believe Villa are where they are. I wanted to analyse them not because of the points they have, or the goals they don't score, but by the quality of the players. It was a very difficult game, the stadium is a difficult place to go."

Of their lack of goals, he said: "Sooner or later Villa had to score and they did it today. They have so many good players, with runners in attack. They put [Christian] Benteke on in the second half, they had [Joe] Cole, [Scott] Sinclair and [Carlos] Gil behind the striker, three very creative players.

"It makes it very difficult to play against them, so this is a very important victory for us."

Chelsea have a seven-point lead at the top of the Premier League table, while Villa sit 16th.