Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho targets win against Basle ahead of a busy period when ‘only brave survive’.
“It’s a period I like,” Mourinho said. “It’s a period where I think the squad can play a role, not just the team. It’s a period where I think only the bravest can survive because it’s hard. We go into the Christmas period and the accumulation of matches is so high, we don’t do it as a normal thing. “We do it as a special group with a special mentality, enjoying the situation and forgetting we don’t have a Christmas like the Spanish, Italian and German players. We have the pleasure of playing
Nine matches in December, after Tuesday’s Champions League tie away to Basle, will define Chelsea’s campaign and test their squad according to their manager, who explained why he had, once more, cropped his hair extremely short.
Victory on Tuesday would “kill off” Group E – with Chelsea winning it to progress into the last 16 of the Champions League – and mean that the final rubber, at home to Steaua Bucharest, is dead.
Victory would, therefore, mean only eight meaningful matches in December. “That’s our motivation for today’s, to kill the situation in the group stage and give us a bit of space in December,” Mourinho said.
