Fringe players disappoint Mourinho
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has told some of his fringe players they have made his next team selection “easy” after they failed to make the most of their opportunity against Shrewsbury.
Andre Schurrle, Mohamed Salah and Filipe Luis all struggled as the Blues scraped through 2-1 to reach the Capital One Cup quarter-finals.
They needed a late own goal from Jermaine Grandison to progress on Tuesday after Andy Mangan had levelled with 13 minutes left.
Didier Drogba bagged the opener, his second in two games, but Mourinho – who made seven changes from Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Manchester United – was not happy with his fringe players ahead of Saturday’s visit of QPR.
“I expect players to give me problems. I love problems. But a lot of them didn’t and they’ve made it easy to choose my team for Saturday,” said Mourinho, who gave a debut to right-back Andreas Christensen.
“If players who played 90 minutes two days ago were fantastic I expect people who are not playing a lot to raise the level to create me problems. They didn’t create me big problems.”
But the boss said Drogba was an example to the rest of his squad after his key role.
He said: “Yes I was worried when they equalised but we go through and Didier played a massive part in that.
“Hopefully he will be good for the weekend but we will have to see because right now his character is stronger than his body.
“Maybe what he has done today is through his character – not his body.
“That’s what makes players special and any of the young players lucky enough to play alongside him, learn from that.”
Drogba added: “I played here before, with Galatasaray. Shrewsbury have improved since then. It was difficult with the weather. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the game. It was difficult but I started playing in places like this.”
Shrewsbury scared Chelsea at Greenhous Meadow and impressed in the first half with Nathaniel Knight-Percival forcing Petr Cech into a save and Bobby Grant also went close.
They return to Sky Bet League Two action at Dagenham on Saturday and boss Micky Mellon complimented Mourinho’s style.
He said: “Jose was brilliant. I can’t speak about the guy highly enough and he was a perfect gentleman. He’s done some stuff for the local kids and I had 25 minutes with him before the game and he was very complimentary about our team.
“He’s an example to any young manager with the way you should operate.”
