Jose Mourinho sent out a defiant message to the rest of the Premier League after refusing to dwell on the absence of captain John Terry and Didier Drogba in the FA Community Shield against Manchester United.
NealSimpson/Empics
Jose Mourinho was back on the Blues bench
The teams were level at 1-1 after 90 minutes after new £13.5million signing
Florent Malouda struck just before the interval to cancel out a 35th-minute
opener from Ryan Giggs.
United goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar was the shoot-out hero with penalty saves
from Claudio Pizarro, Frank Lampard and Shaun Wright-Phillips to give Sir Alex
Ferguson's side some revenge for their FA Cup final defeat last May.
But with Terry ruled out for a month and Drogba sidelined after collecting a
knock against Brondby, Chelsea face the start of the season without two of their
most influential players.
Mourinho insisted he was unconcerned by the injuries and was ready for the
start of the new campaign against Birmingham at Stamford Bridge next week.
He said: 'I am very happy with the players who took part today.
'When you ask me about John Terry and Didier Drogba or Michael Ballack,
Salomon Kalou or Claude Makelele - all of the boys who were not here - I don't
want to go in that direction because I want to respect the players I had here
today.
'They played very well for me and I prefer to speak about them instead of the
players not involved in the game.
'I now have to analyse the picture for the next two weeks to make my
decisions in relation to the three matches we have to play against Birmingham,
Reading and Liverpool.
'When you have so many injured players, you hope one or two can be back. I
would be happy just to have Kalou. The situation was not easy to prepare for
this game.
'But what makes me really happy and confident is that one side was a team
almost in the maximum of their power if you look at Manchester United's team
last season and the team they played here.
'If you look at the Chelsea team, we are speaking about less than 50% of the
team. But we competed against them. They were not better than us, I am not going
to say we were better than them but it is fair to say nobody was better than
anybody.
'That has given us confidence for the start of the season against
Birmingham.
'When the injured players are back, they are back. But I am ready to go, like
I was today, ready to go to the fight with the boys who played today. I am happy
with them.
'I work with them, I play with them and I trust them, so no problems.'
Mourinho was in a philosophical mood about the outcome of the game itself,
insisting that his side controlled the contest with ease.
He added: 'Losing is losing. But losing on penalties is different to losing
in 90 minutes.
'When you lose in 90 minutes, normally the best team wins. Penalties decide
which teams win trophies or go through the next round of a competition, but they
are details.
'If I analyse the game with the penalty details, I have to say they had an
outstanding goalkeeper on the penalties and we had three boys who played very
well but couldn't score their penalties.
'If I give my opinion about the 90 minutes, I think Chelsea did not deserve
to lose. We controlled the game, not for 10, 15 or 20 minutes - we controlled
the game for 90 minutes in quite an easy way.
'We played without a striker in the first half and when you do that it is
difficult to bring the game into the opponent's half because you don't have a
target man or someone to hold the ball-up.
'But even without a striker, the three boys in attack gave us life and speed
and the goal was a good example of that.
'In the second half with Claudio the team had a presence there and we were
playing much more in the opponent's half. But Pizarro could not play 90
minutes.
'He has had a problem in his back in the last two or three days and could not
train.
'This was the first time in my life I have played without a striker.
Formations depend on the players you have available. I want to play 4-4-2 or
4-3-3 but sometimes you have to adapt in relation to the players I have
available.'
