LONDON -- Thibaut Courtois has claimed Jose Mourinho instructed his Manchester United players to unsettle Chelsea with "fouling and kicking" and "mind games" in Monday's FA Cup quarterfinal at Stamford Bridge.
N'Golo Kante's 25-yard strike won the match for Chelsea and came after United midfielder Ander Herrera was shown two yellow cards for fouls on Eden Hazard in the opening 35 minutes.
Home manager Antonio Conte clashed with Mourinho on the touchline about the visitors' physical approach and claimed afterwards that United fouls had made it "impossible" for Hazard to play football in the opening 25 minutes.
Courtois said: "They tried to get in our minds maybe by fouling and kicking to destabilise us.
"These are the mind games they try to play -- they get it from their manager -- but we didn't fall into that trap.
"They obviously came with a plan, to put Phil Jones and [Matteo] Darmian on Eden and Willian. It was hard to find the space but, after we did, they made a lot of fouls.
"They were very hard. It was the style of Mourinho -- and Herrera paid the price for his teammates.
"We can expect from playing Manchester United before that they can play their football very well, but obviously without [Anthony] Martial and [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic they can play a different game -- and that's what they did."
The Belgium international said Chelsea had "played our game, we did it our way, like we have for the last six months or so, and we did it well."
And he added that Conte's Premier League leaders were looking forward to a semifinal against London rivals Tottenham Hotspur in April.
"It is good to go to Wembley and now we have ambitions to reach the final and win it," he said.