Agence France Presse

Blackburn, February 3:

Jose Mourinho has set Chelsea a target of nine more wins to clinch their first title in 50 years after a bruising 1-0 Premiership victory at Blackburn Rovers. An ill-tempered encounter saw the Chelsea manager refute claims from opposite number Mark Hughes that he is an ungracious victor, after seeing his side move a commanding 11 points clear of Manchester United at the top of the table.

Mourinho’s champions-elect chalked-up an eighth consecutive victory — all accompanied by a clean sheet — courtesy of a sixth minute goal from Arjen Robben, the Dutch international who will undergo x-ray on a badly briused foot, after limping off shortly after his goal following a shuddering challenge with Blackburn’s Aaron Mokoena.

Mourinho dismissed Hughes’ claims that he failed to shake the Welshman’s hand at the final whistle, as the Portuguese coach joined his players’ post-match celebrations in front of the Chelsea fans, in scenes reminiscent of his head-long charge down the Old Trafford touchline last year following his former club Porto’s Champions League victory over Manchester United.

Chelsea remain on course for an unprecedented quadruple of domestic and European honours this season thanks to Robben’s ninth goal of the season finished with a devastating left-foot shot acroos Americal goalkeeper Brad Friedel following Frank Lampard’s searching 40-yard pass. Mourinho fears Blackburn’s over-physical tactics will be replicated in his sides 13 remaining games, and he added, “It was a fight, and we fought.”

“Blackburn tried to intimidate us, because they could not beat us with football. Robben’s in a lot of pain and he has to go for x-rays. I don’t know if going to be out for weeks or months.”

On a pitch Mourinho criticised for being overly watered, the visitors were indebted to goalkeeper Petr Cech’s stunning 34th minute penalty save from Scotland striker Raul Dickov, after a foul by Paulo Ferreira on Robbie Sabage.

It enabled Chelsea to equal Arsenal’s Premiership high of eight straight clean sheets to leave them four short of a season beat 23 shut-outs, also set by the Highbury Club in 1997-98.

Dickov’s late challenge on Chelsea goalkeeper in an effort to force home the rebound led to the first of four separate fracas between groups of players, and set a bad-tempered tone for the remainder of the contest, the gross leniency of referee Uriah Rennie not helping matters as some quite shocking thuggery by both sides went unpunished.

In the process of denying Dickov Cech also eclipsed former Manchester United ’keeper Peter Schmeichel’s mark for the longest spell without conceding a goal, stretching his remarkable unbeaten run to 781 minutes, a shade over 13 hours.