HARRISON, N.J. -- After conceding four second-half goals and losing to a New York Red Bulls side that was essentially their third-team, you would think Jose Mourinho would have some concerns.
You’re wrong.
After the match, Mourinho said Chelsea has “no fragilities,” and believes if they were to play the Red Bulls nine more times, they’d win every game.
[ RECAP: New York Red Bulls 4-2 Chelsea ]
Despite calling the second half a “disaster,” Mourinho scoffed at a reporter in his post-match press conference when it was suggested that Chelsea may have some frailties in their side.You are speaking with the manager of the best team in England. We don’t have fragilities.
We are a top team, we have top players. We started training six days ago and we did 11 training sessions in six days. We don’t need other players.
We play ten times against Red Bulls, we win nine. The second half was a disaster, but I’m not worried.
They gave us a good training session. If we came here today and won 10-0, I’m not happy with that.”
Mourinho may have said Chelsea doesn’t need any other players, but the Blues have been linked with a big-money move for John Stones. However, he refused to answer any questions related to a possible move for the Everton defender.
Mourinho said the purpose of these matches is just to get a run and get the intensity back, and he was not worried about the result. However, he did note there were too many defensive mistakes as well as missed opportunities on the attack.
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While Chelsea put out a lineup of mostly Premier League champions, some younger players did see some action as well. Mourinho talked about these players and was very happy with the play of Victor Moses, but said the others need time to improve.On Victor Moses: “He’s strong, he’s experienced, he’s fast, he’s aggressive. He has to learn how to play with us obviously, but I’m happy with his week, with his 45 minutes. The next match, 45 more minutes. Victor had an evolution over the past couple years.”
On Bertrand Traore: “He’s 19; he’s a kid. He was in Africa, he was at Vitesse, now he comes to Chelsea. He’s not going on loan. We want to keep him and we want to improve him. With the ball he has a lot of talent, but sometimes he doesn’t make the right decisions yet. But this is absolutely normal, so step-by-step. But I repeat, he is not going on loan, he stays.”
On Ruben Loftus-Cheek: “He has lots of talent and we know that. He’s another one that I am not interested in letting go on loan. I want to keep him because he has to improve a lot. In this moment, he is far from being in condition to play for us. “Chelsea’s next match is Saturday against Paris-Saint Germain, the side that knocked the Blues out of the Champions League last season. Then they face Barcelona before heading back to England, so the competition is going to get a lot greater in the next few days.