Jose Mourinho could not blame his players for their poor showing in Basel as they were ‘tired’ and admitted that he could have perhaps freshened things up with more changes.
FC Basel snatched victory in the 87th minute when Mohamed Salah fired home when Branislav Ivanovic fell asleep and let him go, but in truth the Blues were second best all evening and didn’t have a shot on target all evening.
Mourinho told Sky Sports:
“A bad performance, a deserved defeat – but because of other results we qualify mathematically and that is the only positive thing for this night that we qualify for last 16.
“Now we have to get a result at home to finish first, so that is the only positive thing.”
Mourinho said he could tell his side wasn’t up to pace from the of:
“I didn’t like it from the first minute, we started with a defensive mistake immediately, the first time we were in the game we made a defensive mistake – I think we only had a little bit of stability and control in second-half but I felt the team was tired.
“I think the team paid today the price for their international 15 days.
“The match against West Ham was crucial and everyone played a great intense game but I think today we paid a price, they were tired.
“There was no reaction, wrong decisions – so I am not so sad with them as I understand, the team was not fresh and maybe I should make more changes in the team.
“But when you get such a good performance against West Ham you have that temptation of playing the same team as they played so well, it is difficult to change them.
“I made one change with Eden (Hazard) as I thought he could make a difference coming form the bench but perhaps I should have changed more players.
“We should get a better result than this but I don’t blame the players, we have to rest and prepare for the game at the weekend because even with the defeat because of the nine points we are through, and that is the minimum we could do and now we have to fight for the first position.”
So it sounds as though Mourinho is taking full responsibility for the result and so he should as the XI that started the match clearly were not at the races. Ten of them were in the line-up for the West Ham game and performed so well, but FC Basel aren’t the Hammers and the Blues struggled with a side that had skill, guile, pace and did not allow our lads a moments peace with their pressing game.
It’s also quite worrying how reliant Chelsea’s attack is on Eden Hazard as it was virtually non-existent before he took to the field.
Both Frank Lampard and Oscar were the stars of the weekend but were terrible on Tuesday night. The Brazilian barely touched the ball and missed nearly 40% of his passes whilst Lampard struggled to keep up with the action.
There’s no real positives to pick out from this one aside from the fact we have qualified because Schalke failed to beat Steaua and will top the group should they win the final group game.
I started adoring mourinho since the very 1st day I started hearing his name but lately I think he is beginning to piss me off. How can a coach of his type be complaining of tiredness with the kind of players he has on his bench. The mourinho I use to know will not have a lost player on th pitch for more than 10mins and he will remove him, but this time he left a lost oscar and lampard on the pitch for almost an your or more (I can’t remember!) while he has the most creative mid-fielder Chelsea has at the moment on the bench and he has the face to blame tiredness over his stubornness to use mata. Since his return, I have not seen any Chelsea match that is beta than mata and hazard combination we had last season. Despite all the BS! he is trying to create about his reasons for not playing mata i’m stil struggling to understand why he is seriously not playing mata. I still love mourinho and I pray this his Chelsea reprogramming works out well for without mata, because I trust Chelsea owner, I know he can afford to fire him and be paying him any amount for five years
The football is garbage. I think what the ‘Jose can do no wrong’ brigade need to realise is that no one would be questioning him if his decisions meant playing good football.
I’m amazed, and a little saddened, to see fans happy to sit a couple of points behind Wenger’s trophyless wonders in the Premier League table & doing just enough in what should have been an easy Champions League group.
We used to laugh at Arsenal and Liverpool fans for their blind faith in Wenger and Dalgish, when did we become the deluded laughingstock?
I want Jose to sort this but anyone that tries to say it’s good enough at the moment has their head in his a**e.