Blues chief falls on his sword after shock defeat.
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho admitted that the club’s shock 2-1 defeat to Swiss club FC Basle was ‘one step back’ in their quest for Champions League glory and went further to say that the blame should lie on his shoulders, Sky Sports reports.
The game was Mourinho’s first venture into Europe with the club since returning over the summer and all was going according to plan when Oscar gave them the lead in the first half.
However, the Blues squandered a number of chances during the second period and suddenly found themselves behind late on thanks to goals from Mohamed Salah and Marco Streller.
Chelsea were also beaten by a goal to nil by Everton in the Premier League last weekend, but Mourinho has insisted that it is no time to panic.
“I am the manager, I am responsible for everything,” he told Sky Sports.
“Especially after a bad result. In the good moments I want everyone to shine, in the bad moments I want everyone to keep calm.
“Tomorrow I will not wake up with a smile on my face but at seven o’clock I will work hard to get three points against Fulham.
“In the next match, we go to Bucharest (in the Champions League), we have to get the points to put us in the Champions League. We don’t want to play in the Europa League.”
Mourinho also praised Basle for their victory, but bemoaned his own side’s wastefulness in front of goal, and whilst nobody would have credited Chelsea with a good chance of losing, the special one admitted that he is not all that perplexed at the situation.
“I not in shock because sometimes we win, sometimes we lose,” he said.
“I am not happy of course with the result because instead of taking one step in the direction of qualification, we did one step back, but we have to assume the responsibility that we have five matches to play in the group phase.”
Asked where it had gone wrong, Mourinho added: “I think they played well. I think in the first half they defended well because we had a lot of the ball but could not create many chances.
“Oscar scored at a good time for us and then I think they scored their equaliser at our best moment of the game, after we had a couple of good opportunities, and after that we were punished defensively.”