Chelsea 3 Sheffield United 0: Mourinho admits it is a waiting game for him now

Sheffield United did as few favours for north London on Saturday as they did for south Yorkshire. Chelsea were given their easiest work-out of the season - not one single Blades player came close to warranting a caution, never mind ruffling Jose Mourinho - ahead of tonight's FA Cup quarter-final replay against Tottenham Hotspur.

Even Neil Warnock, the United manager, was moved to declare that his team did well to come away with just a 3-0 drubbing. They also, however, departed with a severe injury blow, and a damaging turn for their prospects of remaining in the Premiership, with the striker Rob Hulse suffering a suspected double fracture to his left leg. Warnock predicted that his top scorer may miss part of the next campaign as well as the tail of this one.

Mourinho knows all about injuries and has not been slow to blame the damage done to Petr Cech and John Terry, in particular, for the fact that the champions still trail Manchester United by six points. Now those injuries are largely clearing and the chances are that Michael Essien, also, will recover from the ligament strain to his knee to also play tonight.

But Mourinho admits, although he is not quite saying it, that time is against his team catching United. Indeed, a Cup victory at Spurs could hurt those prospects even further as it would push back their home fixture against the League leaders from 15 April into May. By then it may be impossible to overtake. Does Mourinho believe United can slip up? "Against Chelsea, yes," he said. "Against the others, I don't know. If we play tomorrow, I think we get from six points to three. But I don't know even when I have to play them."

All his players can do, he said, in a phrase echoed by Frank Lampard, is keep winning. "Last season when we were leading people said the pressure was on us," Mourinho said. "I said the pressure was on second place and my analysis hasn't changed."

That was about as far as Mourinho would go in admitting that he is now feeling the heat. He then tried to switch that pressure on to Spurs with the clear inference that, leading 3-1 at Stamford Bridge last week before being pegged back, they had had their chance. And blew it. "I think against Tottenham we were out of the FA Cup at half-time. Nobody believed we could still be in. Only us."

Indeed, Mourinho described Spurs' goals that day as gifts. "Some goals are great goals and you can do nothing about them. But other goals are defensive mistakes. The first game against Tottenham was a game of Chelsea defensive mistakes."

Terry, of course, missed that game and, having had an easy work-out at the weekend, will take his place against Spurs. He, like the rest of the Chelsea team, will also want to avenge the 2-1 league defeat earlier this season, although Terry has the added incentive of having been dismissed that tumultuous afternoon. "It was a crucial day for the Premiership at the time," Mourinho said. "We were playing very well, winning 1-0, had a second goal disallowed and had JT sent off. It was a bad game for us because we lost."

There was never any danger of defeat against Sheffield United. Mourinho hailed his team's home form as "amazing" but what was more amazing was the way Warnock's players stood off Chelsea, especially in the opening 20 minutes, and especially as the game plan was to mark man-for-man. By the end of that period they were two down and the contest was over.

Andrei Shevchenko struck the first, a crisp, clean drive after a surging run by the increasingly impressive Ricardo Carvalho and then helped the ball on Shaun Wright-Phillips' dangerous low cross for Salomon Kalou to volley the second. A header by Michael Ballack completed the scoring. The midfielder, like Didier Drogba, came on while Shevchenko and Lampard were taken off as Mourinho was able to rest and rotate ahead of tonight.

Warnock knows his team, the hard-working Nick Montgomery apart, capitulated. But, although they slipped to 17th, he was bullish about their prospects. "If we don't get enough points to stay up it is our fault, no one else's," he said. Chelsea may have an FA Cup final to try for but United now have eight finals.

Goals: Shevchenko (4) 1-0; Kalou (17) 2-0; Ballack (58) 3-0.

Chelsea (4-3-3): Cech; Boulahrouz, Terry, Carvalho, A Cole (Ferreira, 65); Wright-Phillips, Makelele, Lampard (Ballack, h-t); Kalou, Shevchenko (Drogba, 65), Robben. Substitutes not used: Cudicini (gk), Diarra.

Sheffield United (4-4-1-1): Kenny; Geary, Morgan, Davis, Armstrong; Gillespie, Jagielka, Montgomery, Kazim-Richards; A Quinn (Tonge, 67); Hulse (Nade, 27). Substitutes not used: Bromby, Shelton, Stead.

Referee: C Foy (Merseyside).

Man of the match: Shevchenko.

Attendance: 41,897.