Chelsea played with 5 injured players – Mourinho

• Posted on February 18, 2015
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Portuguese believes his side got a positive result against PSG, despite Edinson Cavani’s equaliser, though admits his fatigued squad struggled as the game wore on.

Jose Mourinho has claimed that he was forced to select five unfit players for Chelsea’s  1-1 draw at Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League last-16 first leg.

The Blues took the lead at the Parc des Princes, with Branislav Ivanovic heading in from Gary Cahill’s flick, but were pegged back in a dominant second half from the home side.

Thibaut Courtois, praised by skipper John Terry in teh aftermath of the game, made a string of fine saves but was powerless to stop Edinson Cavani from finding the back of the net.

Mourinho admits his side flagged in the second period, failing to muster a single shot on goal, but was keen to point out that many of his players carried knocks heading into the match which prevented them from training.

“Sometimes people they speak about the players when they are injured and they don’t play. But there are injured players that play,” Mourinho told ITV afterwards.

“The injured players that play don’t train to play. I had in this team five players that didn’t train. They didn’t train once since the game at Everton.

“They had a warming down yesterday for the press to see they were on the pitch. We felt that a little. I’m happy with the result. Two legs is now one leg with everything to be decided at Stamford Bridge.”

When asked if Chelsea might have won the match after Ivanovic’s opener, Mourinho continued: “We could lose, too. The result is a positive one. I don’t say ‘very good’ because it depends on the result of the second leg.

“But I say a positive result against a very good team. A team with fantastic attacking players. When they were losing we knew that they would have a go so it was a difficult match.

“When you see the performance of our goalkeeper you have to say ‘yes’ [Chelsea got away with it]. Our goalkeeper made two or three important saves in the game.”

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