Players need to show more motivation, says Mourinho
After beating the Italians 1-0 in Boston last Sunday, Mourinho saw his Blues squad take on US Major League Soccer champions DC United in Washington on Thursday night and go behind to a soft, set-piece header in the first-half before recovering for a 2-1 victory.
The Chelsea coach had earlier in the week questioned whether his players would be able to approach the DC game in the right frame of mind. He addressed his players on the subject before the match, in the wake of pre-season upsets for high-profile clubs elsewhere in the world this week, only to see his fears realised at FedEx Field, when DC United went at Chelsea with all guns blazing.
“I sat on the bench, and two minutes later, I already knew what was going to happen,” Mourinho said. “It didn’t surprise me. They are a well-organised team but I’m not very happy with some of my players.
“I was speaking with them before the game. And I was asking them if they could answer the reasons why Manchester United lost in Japan, Real Madrid lost, the reason why AC Milan had it so difficult against Chicago, and they told me, because of motivation, because of attitude, because of no respect for the opponent.”
Chelsea had been under pressure from the kick-off and had just scrambled clear a DC attack on 29 minutes at the third time of asking after Petr Cech had parried a Jaime Moreno shot, John Terry had blocked Josh Gros’ rebound effort and Gros had his effort deflected over the bar when the ball came back to him.
Yet the Blues were still caught napping at the ensuing corner as rookie defender Bobby Boswell left his marker Didier Drogba on the edge of the box and rose unmarked to head home on the half-hour. That knocked Chelsea out of their slumber and they replied five minutes later in style when Damien Duff drilled home a left-foot volley from an acute angle at the far post after meeting a Shaun Wright-Phillips cross from the right.
Duff’s spectacular effort was the highlight of an otherwise sloppy Chelsea performance and Mourinho pulled no punches at half-time, swapping all but midfielder Tiago in a move which confirmed his first-half agitation.
“It is the middle of their season so they are sharp,” Mourinho said of DC United. “They are fast, they are better than we are. But our motivation only came when we conceded a goal. The team in the first half was really bad.”
Terry, who led that first-half team, also recognised the poor display.
“Coming into the game we knew that with this game coming halfway through their season, they would be that little bit sharper than us and it would take time for us to adapt to their game,” he said.
“A couple of the lads are saying they got blocked on the corner but the key thing for us is hopefully we can get those things out of the way pre-season and we can work on them in training over the next few weeks so that once the season comes we can stop things like that. And we’ve got one game left here to work on things.”
Chelsea’s second-half outfit saved Terry and Co’s blushes in the 56th minute, Tiago starting a counter-attack from an intercepted pass, fed Arjen Robben, who swept the ball forward to Hernan Crespo, who slid the ball across sub keeper Troy Perkins and into the net.
Still, it was not all one-way traffic and DC made some changes of their own, most notably introducing teenage prodigy Freddy Adu. Chelsea have known about the Ghanaian-born player for a while now. Chief executive Peter Kenyon and Chelsea have monitored his progress for some time and invited Adu’s mother to watch her son from the luxury of a FedEx Field corporate box.
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