Jose Mourinho has backed Chelsea to bounce straight back from their first Premier League defeat of the season, saying: "We are better than anybody else."
Mourinho's Blues were beaten 2-1 at Newcastle on Saturday, ending their unbeaten run and seeing their lead at the top of the table cut to three points by defending champions Manchester City.
But the manager -- who pointed the finger at Newcastle's ball boys after the result, which he called an "anomaly" -- said he expected an instant response from his players.
"We are top of the league," he added. "Nobody has done better than us. Everyone would like to be in our position. So we are more than fine. We are better than anybody else."
"I will back them [the players] to bounce back. For people like me who have been in football for so long, you have to accept this anomaly.
"To come here and be better than our opponents and lose, that is football.
"I don't say my team is the best, I say my team is top of the league and, at this moment, nobody has the same points we have. Because of that, at the moment we're the best team in the Premier League."
The Portuguese said his players were "accepting the defeat as part of the game" saying they had "tried everything, were unlucky and are not happy with that."
And he said he was not worried about the fitness of 32 million-pound summer signing Diego Costa, who has struggled to regain his early-season goal-scoring form following a succession of hamstring problems.
"He has to recover, but I don't think there is any problem," he said. "For me, the problem is not the goals. The goals will come as a consequence of his condition."