Jose Mourinho has hinted at yet another conspiracy theory after Chelsea collected four yellow cards from their 2-0 win against Werder Bremen in the Champions League last night.

Mourinho was at a loss to explain why so many of his players find their way into the referee's notebook when they play in Europe.

John Terry, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and Didier Drogba were booked against Werder in last night's Champions League opener, and the key quartet are now one booking away from a ban.

The Chelsea boss suspects Uefa have a hidden agenda against him but chose his words carefully as he checked the statistics from the first round of matches.

Mourinho said: "I don't want to speak about this, because I spoke lots over the last three years.

"But the reality, when you look, is Barcelona have no yellow cards, Bayern Munich one yellow card, Liverpool no yellow cards, Valencia one yellow card, Roma one yellow card, Chelsea four yellow cards.

"Do you think it is violence? No."

Valencia actually had two players booked — Edu and Roberto Ayala — and Mourinho overlooked the fact that Inter Milan had four booked, one of whom, Patrick Vieira, was sent off at Sporting Lisbon.

Terry, Lampard, Cole and Drogba must now tip-toe through the rest of the group games, knowing that another booking will mean an automatic one-match ban.

The Blues are away to Levski Sofia before back-to-back games against Barcelona next month.

Mourinho said: "The difference between an easy group and a difficult group is that in an easy group you don't get yellow cards because the game is soft; the game is not with pressure.

"In big matches it's tight, and you get more yellow cards.

"Players like Terry and Lampard don't get yellow cards in England and they go to European football and they have a lot of cards."