Culled from Yahoo Sport
It is a surprise that Chelsea lost on Wednesday night but I am not surprised that it was a difficult game, as Basel are an up-and-coming club. Having said that, you would expect Chelsea to beat them.
However, this squad isn’t a Jose Mourinho-type squad. Mourinho likes to control games, but this Blues squad is weighed down with attacking players.
What he wants is a young John Terry, Frank Lampard or Didier Drogba - instead what he has got is these fantastic flair players, but that’s not how he plays. He must take some responsibility as he had time to make signings, but failed to get the players who'd have fitted his philosophy.
Romelu Lukaku is the nearest they had to a Drogba, but to send him out on loan is a typical cautious Mourinho move. He weighed it all up and wants a proven player at the business end of the season, so he gone with someone he worked with before in Samuel Eto'o.
We have seen that that Mourinho doesn’t trust Fernando Torres - at old Trafford, Andre Schurrle played as a front man. That's his choice, but it's very strange. If he doesn’t trust Torres, why not offload him? They had long enough in the window to sell him, but I mean, why keep him around if you’re never going to use him?
That says it all about their transfer dealings, which have been odd. There was money available to make the signings that made most sense, so I find it strange. Look at Manchester City: they bought players where they needed them, but Chelsea just didn’t do that.
There is no doubt Willian is a great player but you sense that Mourinho is not getting enough defensive work from his attack-minded players. Mourinho is never going to send a side out there and say, “go and play boys; go and entertain me.”
He wants to be in control of every game, he wants to take the risk out of games but he doesn’t have the personnel - he has got too many risk takers to do that.
Chelsea have got so many options in attacking areas that as the season goes on Mourinho will struggle to know what his strongest XI is. I mean, other managers could cope with that squad but it just doesn’t suit the way Mourinho wants to play.
Going back to Chelsea is the biggest challenge of Mourinho’s managerial career.
He is exceptional but it is never the same the second time around and we should never forget why he left the first time – Roman Abramovich was not happy with the way they played. If anything, Mourinho is more cautious than when he was first time round.
Sure, Mourinho allowed Cristiano Ronaldo freedom at Madrid but he appears unsure whether the players at his disposal are ready for that freedom.
He has a completely different idea of when a player is ready. These players look ready to take on a big role and I thought Lukaku was ready but Mourinho doesn’t.
That’s where Mourinho is different from most of the rest of the football world – for him players have to have played in excess of 200 games and, for me, that’s not always the case. He has to give that squad a little bit more freedom in the way they play.
He has an exceptional pool of talent, and that group of players should be good enough to win the majority of their games, but a manger needs to get the best out of what he has at his disposal. For Mourinho to do that with this Chelsea squad, he's going to have to take a deep breath and get used to the idea of letting his players off the leash.
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