Mourinho shows Rodgers how to win rotation balancing act Chelsea failed to defeat Maribor but the managers team selection showed his desire to overcome the Slovenian minnows while still keeping players fresh for Anfield on Saturday. By Wayne Veysey Nov 5, 2014 6:00:00 PM When the Chelsea team sheet was handed in, there were none of the ructions that accompanied the hand grenade dropped by Liverpool 24 hours earlier. Jose Mourinho made four changes to the side that defeated Queens Park Rangers at the weekend, with Thibaut Courtois, Diego Costa, Oscar and Gary Cahill following the path of Steven Gerrard, Raheem Sterling & Co. by helping to form a luxury dugout. Like Brendan Rodgers, Mourinho wanted to keep some of his big guns refreshed for Saturday lunchtimes clash between the sides. Yet there will not be any accusations of the Portugese trampling on a famous heritage. Or requiring three points at Anfield to justify his midweek rotation policy. Mourinho sets out to foster a winning menality in his teams, and it is non-stop. As he said before the match, responding to Rodgers selection: If one day I go to a game and I don’t feel I can win, maybe I don’t go. It was a night of toil and frustration for Chelsea against Slovenian minnow Maribor but that was hardly because its manager underestimated the opposition or had half an eye on the weekend. Indeed, with Chelseas position at the top of Group G relatively secure before kick off, Mourinho could be said to have showed Maribor considerable respect by fielding three of his regular back four, his favored central- midfield duo and a front quartet of Eden Hazard, Andre Schurrle, Willian and Didier Drogba. Anfield in two-and-half-days time did not seem at the forefront of Mourinhos mind when Costa and Oscar were summoned to replace subdued pair Willian and Schurrle at the break. The plan was to embark on the complicated journey back to London with three points in the bag. I changed at halftime with the conviction that the team was going to improve, explained the manager afterwards. Nor did keeping the regulars fresh appear a factor at the 55-minute mark when Filipe Luis, partly at fault for the Maribor goal moments earlier, was withdrawn in favor of fit-again Ramires and Chelsea switched to three at the back. The message from the touchline was clear: grab the win and qualify for the knockout stages with two matches to play. The message is always the same: win. That Chelsea did not do so was down to Eden Hazards poor, late penalty, a rare blemish from the Belgian who did more than anyone else in the yellow away strip to guarantee his teams passage to the last 16. When a player plays as well as Eden Hazard did, for me he was absolutely fantastic, by far the best player of my team, a player with a performance like this can miss a penalty and can still be the best player on my team, said Mourinho afterwards. We paid the price for a not-good first half and their goalkeeper was fantastic. The Portugese was right. His men deserved to win and, given the fluency of their play in the last half-hour, were unfortunate not to do so. Next page
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 06:27:35 +0000
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