Mourinho: Swansea City Will Bounce Back

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho recognised that Swansea City struggled with a lack of midfield options in today’s heavy 5-0 defeat at the Liberty Stadium.

The Premier League leaders were 1-0 up before the first minute was over, as an error from Gylfi Sigurdsson allowed Oscar in to fire home with a clinical low finish past Fabianski.

That set the tone for the rest of the half – a damaging one that we’ll soon want to forget after conceding another three.

Oscar scored another and Costa bagged himself a brace to complete a 4-goal first half route, before the Swans could re-group and look to avoid similar embarrassment in the second half.

With Shelvey, Britton and Ki all unavailable, Monk decided to field both his strikers Gomis and Oliveira, but still tried to adopt the usual 4-2-3-1 formation – like their superior opponents.

However, the Swans were far too narrow, Routledge and Dyer were tucked in centrally and this allowed Chelsea to play with width and cause plenty of problems by effectivily switching the play and stretching the hosts.

As a result, the Swans couldn’t compete in the middle third and lacked ball winners. There was a lot of pressure on Tom Carroll as the only recognised holding midfielder – and he lacked support along side him.

Mourinho was of course delighted with his side’s faultless performance, but was fair to admit that Swansea struggled with a lack of midfield options.

“The team played very well, solid defensively and in attack we were aggressive and took our chances,”

“It was a good performance. The team is playing with high quality, and we have a clear identity of playing.

“It was difficult game for them to prepare without three players in one position – Shelvey, Ki and Britton. It`s an important position for them. When you don`t have these players, it`s a problem. They will react because they are a very good team.”

With their title rivals – Manchester City – not playing until tomorrow, Chelsea increased their lead at the top of 5 points.

“It was the perfect performance. Everything went our way,”

“To score in the first minute makes it a different game for them.”

“At 4-0, it was not over but we controlled the game in the second half.

“The team played very well, we were solid defensively,” he said. “Oscar and Diego did not play any better than John Terry or Ivanovic or the others.

“Swansea were aggressive and had ambition. The second goal signified the way we like to play.

“The team is playing with high quality, not for the first time this season but ever since the first game. We have a clear identity of how to play.

“We have been going in a certain direction.”