Chelsea’s start to the Champions League could not have been worse with their 1-2 defeat to FC Basel. Oscar scored for the home side in the beginning to give them the lead only to be nullified by Basel midfielder Mohamed Salah. Then Marco Streller scored the winning goal to the utter dismay of the Blues fans. This defeat bugged owner Roman Abramovich to such an extent that he visited the dressing room after the match to meet the players. Now manager Jose Mourinho has put the blame for the defeat on himself taking full responsibility for the failure.
“I am the manager, I am responsible for everything, especially in the bad moments. In the good moments I want everyone to shine. In the bad moments, I want everyone to keep calm, to keep in the shadow and let me take responsibility for that.”
“Of course we are not happy, but to play football in good moments is good fun and is easy for everybody. In the difficult moment is when you see the man, when you see the character, the personality. So let’s wait for Fulham and try to clean what we couldn’t do today,” said the Special One who returned to his favourite club this season with much hopes.
Mourinho insisted he did not regret the changes he made to his line-up after he handed a debut to Willian and dropped skipper John Terry to the bench, suggesting he needs to amend his line-up on a regular basis.
This is Chelsea’s second defeat in a row after their upset at the hands of Everton in the weekend. The supporters of the club would now hope that the team leaves behind its bad days and rise up once again to make a mark. The Blues host Fulham in the London derby this Saturday.
In other news, former Liverpool star and now television pundit Jamie Carragher believes that Chelsea’s poor display can be credited to the lack of ideas of their manager. He has stated that Jose Mourinho has not done anything special since his return to the Chelsea hotseat and their lack of a proper centre forward is hurting their chances further.
“Virtually every game I’ve seen Chelsea in, they are playing with 10 men,” Carragher stated. They haven’t got a centre forward, have they? He’s tried them all, he’s brought Ba in there, he’s tried going with no striker at Old Trafford – he’s tried everything. It just isn’t working.”
No matter how many players you’ve got, your wide player, your No 10s, your floating players, if you haven’t got a centre forward a lot of it falls down really. All the time I’ve seen them it’s like they are a man down already before they’ve started the game,” Carragher mentioned.
Watch the highlights here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtmmlwbDwFg