Mourinho's gestures from the sidelines made it clear he wanted Inter to exploit the areas around Chelsea left-back Yuri Zhirkov, but the Russian full-back twice rescued his side with perfect challenges on Eto'o and Pandev as they closed in on keeper Ross Turnbull.
The former Athletico Madrid star and the rest of the Middlesbrough team produced few clear-cut opportunities and it was left to full-back Curtis Fleming to force a fine tip-over save from Steve Harper in the second-half.