Chelsea 1-2 Basel
For Mourinho’s first Champions home game since his return to Stamford Bridge, he could not be worse! Two goals in the last 15 minutes ruined a night that started well although.. Indeed the spark ignited from Oscar at the 45′ gave the lead to Chelsea and apparently too much confidence going into the second period.
Mourinho reacts after astonishing loss:
‘The objective of finishing top two in the group stage and to go to the next phase is an objective that is not lost, far from it, and it is an objective that we are going to fight for. It is an objective that I believe very much that we are going to achieve.
‘In the first half we had a big percentage of the ball. In a short period we had corner after corner after corner, but we didn’t create. Basel were very compact, they defended with everybody behind and they closed everything when they are normally an attacking team, but in the first half we did nothing really to score the goal. When we scored and went to the half-time winning 1-0, I think normally the score would be 0-0.
‘In the second half in our best period when we had more space to play, we hit the woodwork and had two on-target efforts deflected wide, Basel scored the goal. After that their second goal is difficult to accept because we work a lot on the organisation at defensive set pieces and the header was in a position where we have players defending that zone, because we defend mixed zonal and man-to-man, and we have two players defending in that zone plus the man that was marking the scorer Streller. Three players made a mistake and we were punished because of that.’
On Eto’o:
‘Samuel maybe lacked sharpness and this doesn’t surprise really when you are some years in a place that doesn’t motivate you and you are out of the big stage, maybe you’re there not for the right reasons and you lose huger and appetite. Now he has that back, he has that motivation, he wants to succeed and play and is happy to be at this level.
‘He is participating a lot in the collective game. For the sharpness and the click to score, we have to wait but he is a great player and he will score goals. I am happy with these three strikers for the rest of the season. They are good players and professionals, and try to give their best to the team and the happy moment will arrive.’
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