Jose Mourinho admitted Chelsea were a tad lucky to come away with a 2-1 win over Aston Villa in their English Premier League game Wednesday.
The Blues were given a stern test by Villa in the 90 minutes at Stamford Bridge as Chelsea went home with three points courtesy a late winner from Branislav Ivanovic.
Christian Benteke had earlier equalized for Villa after Antonio Luna's own goal had given Chelsea an early lead.
Chelsea have now won two Premier League games out of two and Mourinho admitted this victory was not as straightforward as the one against Hull City.
"If we are here with a draw it would not be an unfair result," Mourinho said.
"Aston Villa fought a lot for a result, they don't play a lot because every ball the goalkeeper has he kicks, but they created great difficulties and probably if Petr Cech did not save a shot at the far post from (Andreas) Weimann we don't even get a point.
"Villa have a special player with special qualities and they use him. The goalkeeper has a great kick and Benteke is fantastic in the first ball and they play from this. They have this and they have the counter-attack and we handled the counter-attack fantastically because we played with great balance.
"But the situation with Benteke it is difficult to control because you can't press the goalkeeper -- he kicks the ball and after that everything is born from Benteke.
"The great thing today (Wednesday) is Villa gave us a different match and we coped, defensively we were strong. We could do better with the ball and maybe my decision to change only two players for the start was not the best, maybe we should have had more fresh players, but we fought hard."
Mourinho made two changes to his side, bringing in Juan Mata and Demba Ba for Kevin De Bruyne and Fernando Torres respectively with the latter not even making the bench.
"Sometimes you can have two strikers on the bench but this game I needed a different balance on the bench because I may have to play (Cesar) Azpilicueta because he is very fast, maybe I need Mikel's experience, I needed options in wingers and I know Mata cannot play for 90 minutes at this moment," Mourinho said explaining his decision to leave Torres out of the squad.
"I try to give my three strikers time on the pitch and this time Fernando stayed out but (Romelu) Lukaku can say he is the only one that hasn't started a game."
Mourinho also had kind words for Villa manager Paul Lambert who is looking to create a revolution at Villa with his young players.
"Paul is a certain type of personality and he reminds me of myself 10 years ago when I was complaining every decision, when I wanted to coach the team and have at the same time a whistle in my lips," he added.
"With experience he will change but he is a young manager and very intelligent because he plays very well, adapted to the quality of his players and I wish him well, I like him."
