Mourinho unhappy with Chelsea understudies as Liverpool win

LONDON
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho said that some of his squad players had made his team selection “easy” after they struggled to overcome fourth-tier Shrewsbury Town in the League Cup.

Chelsea booked their place in the quarter-finals with a 2-1 win on Tuesday, but it took an 81st-minute own goal by Jermaine Grandison to send them through after Andy Mangan cancelled out Didier Drogba’s opener.

Andre Schuerrle, Mohamed Salah and Filipe Luis were among the fringe players given opportunities to shine and Mourinho, who made seven changes to his starting XI, said they had failed to impress.

“I expect players to give me problems. I love problems. But a lot of them didn’t and they’ve made it easy to choose my team for Saturday,” said Mourinho, whose side host Queens Park Rangers this weekend.

“If players who played 90 minutes two days ago were fantastic, I expect people who are not playing a lot to raise the level to create me problems. They didn’t create me big problems.”

DROGBA LAUDED

But Mourinho, who also gave a debut to right-back Andreas Christensen, was full of praise for Drogba after the 36-year-old Ivorian veteran netted his second goal in two games.

“Yes I was worried when they equalised, but we go through and Didier played a massive part in that,” said the Portuguese. “Hopefully he will be good for the weekend, but we will have to see because right now his character is stronger than his body. Maybe what he has done today (Tuesday) is through his character, not his body.

“That’s what makes players special and any of the young players lucky enough to play alongside him learn from that.”

Shrewsbury manager Micky Mellon praised Mourinho for the courtesy he extended to the League Two club.

“Jose was brilliant. I can’t speak about the guy highly enough and he was a perfect gentleman,” Mellon said. “He’s done some stuff for the local kids and I had 25 minutes with him before the game and he was very complimentary about our team. He’s an example to any young manager with the way you should operate.”

BALOTELLI SCORES
Elsewhere, Mario Balotelli scored just his second goal for Liverpool in 12 appearances as they came from behind to beat Premier League rivals Swansea 2-1 and advance into the last eight of the League Cup at Anfield on Tuesday.

Balotelli has struggled since his £16 million ($26 million, 20 million euros) pre-season move from AC Milan and on Tuesday he was on the bench until 11 minutes from time.

When the Italian striker was sent on by Reds boss Brendan Rodgers — a former Swansea manager — Liverpool were trailing 1-0 to Marvin Emnes’s 65th-minute goal.

But four minutes from time Balotelli evaded the visitors’ defence to equalise. Then, with extra-time looming, Swansea’s Federico Fernandez was controversially sent off for a challenge on Philippe Coutinho.

And in the fifth minute of stoppage-time, Liverpool’s Dejan Lovren got on the end of a Coutinho free-kick that Swansea keeper Gerhard Tremmel came for and missed to head home the winner — his first goal for Liverpool.