Chelsea’s attacking ambitions frustrating – Mourinho

The Blues boss suggests that, if he felt freer to indulge his counterattacking instincts, his side might not have struggled in their Champions League opener against Basel

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has hinted that the club’s attempts to create an attacking identity cost them the match against Basel.

Willian, the latest creative midfielder signed for big money by the Blues, made his debut as the Blues slumped to a 2-1 defeat in their Champions League opener and the Portuguese suggested that things might have been different were it encouraged for him to set up on the counterattack.

“We are not scoring goals, that’s obvious,” he told Al Jazeera.

“You can’t say we don’t score goals because we’re not an offensive team and don’t play offensive football and don’t have ball possession, because we [do] have an attacking mentality.

“I feel we are going in one direction, which is the direction we want to be to play a certain kind of football, but the reality is we are not scoring.

“But probably, if we play a defensive game and we just go on the counterattack, probably we go there and score two or three goals.

“I rotated because I have to rotate,” Mourinho added of including the likes of Marco van Ginkel, starting for the first time in five changes from Chelsea’s 1-0 defeat at Everton, before putting Samuel Eto’o’s quiet start down to spending “two years at a place [Anzhi Makhachkala] that doesn’t motivate you”.

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Reporting by Babatunde Akinsola in Lagos, Nigeria.