Jose Mourinho has blamed Newcastle's ball boys for ending Chelsea's unbeaten start to the season with what he perceived as time-wasting at St James' Park on Saturday.
A double from substitute Papiss Cisse put the hosts ahead and, despite the Magpies being reduced to 10 men and Didier Drogba scoring with time to spare, the Blues were unable to find a late equaliser to cling into their record.
And the Portuguese boss was furious with the home side's ball boys and their delaying tactics, even suggesting that the match officials should have awarded more than the six minutes of stoppage time that was added on."We wanted to play more football, but that was not possible because a few things that I thought didn't belong any more to top level football but still belongs - the ball disappears, the ball doesn't come, another ball comes, the ball boys they run away," Mourinho told BT Sport.
"These are the kinds of situation which our unfortunately still part of the game. You didn't see that the ball disappeared? They keep the ball, they hide the ball, we want to play, no ball. When one ball comes the second ball appears again. This kind of strategy.
He added to BBC Sport: "My team lost the way I like to lose which is to give everything and being unlucky. Only one team played to win. After the second goal the team lost their emotional balance. A point was the minimum we deserved.
"There could have been 20 minutes stoppage time but the situation would have been the same because things were happening outside the four lines that the referee couldn't control.
"The referee can't punish the ball boy who disappeared with the ball, the referee couldn't punish the people in the crowd who kept the ball. I'm not obsessed with records and statistics, that's not for me, I want to win the league."
The loss ends Chelsea's hopes of emulating Arsene Wenger's Arsenal 'Invincibles', but they remain top of the league, ahead of second-placed Manchester City.
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