Considering how poorly Chelsea played; how ill prepared the defense seemed to be; how lucky the goals from Oscar and William (or was it an own goal) were; and Thibaut Courtois making a foolish mistake that resulted in a goal and red card; Jose Mourinho has nothing to complain about, and actually feel lucky that his team didn’t lose in the season’s opening match.
The defending champions will put this one behind them. Mourinho is used to winning when the season begins, especially at Stamford Bridge. But Swansea, with a very attacking team despite the daunting venue and difficult opponents, the defending champions if you forgot, caused them problems from the first minute, especially when Jefferson Montero attacked a confused Branislav Ivanovic down the flank.
There were the goals from Oscar, who got help by Gary Cahill making it seem like he’s touching the ball, or a few minutes later when Willian’s shot or cross clipped Federico Fernandez to trick Lukasz Fabianski. But other than that? Eden Hazard was stifled on both sides of the pitch, Diego Costa was busy diving and shouting at the referee and speed problems at the centre of defense showed.
Obviously, those speed issues are usually hidden by the fantastic work from Willian and Nemanja Matic, but Swansea’s duo of Jonjo Shelvey and Gylfi Sigurdsson kept the Chelsea midfield busy, allowing Montero, Andre Ayew and Bafetimbi Gomis to create a lot of problems in the back for Chelsea. Gomis was the one tripped by Courtois, and the one who converted that penalty kick.
Mourinho after the match talked more about his physio team and their decision to take off Eden Hazard in injury time for treatment which left Chelsea with two less players than Swansea. He also said he doesn’t want to speak about the referee. Mourinho was obviously unhappy with the red card and penalty, but Courtois made a mistake and will miss a few games for it. Good thing they have a very good goalkeeper in Asmir Begovic to back him up.
It’s only the first weekend, but Chelsea not freshening up this summer (we still have three weeks in August) clearly showed with a team that looked lethargic at times. Maybe it’s just some kinks in the machine Mourinho needs to work on, but perhaps some new blood needs to be injected into this squad. Defending the title is always more difficult than winning it.