Jose Mourinho Turns to Basketball to Revive Chelsea

The honeymoon period at Chelsea is over for Jose Mourinho, but he does not appear to be under too much pressure judging by his press conference on Friday.

Mourinho’s Blues suffered a shock defeat by Basel in the Champions League on Wednesday, and it was reported by James Dickenson in the Daily Express that owner Roman Abramovich was furious with the defeat.

Chelsea face west London rivals Fulham on Saturday, but Mourinho would not appear to be unduly bothered by his side’s recent run of form.

"

Jose Mourinho today pointing to Syria highlighting what's a real crisis - not losing 2 games

— Rob Harris (@RobHarris) September 20, 2013"

Rather than asking the likes of Fernando Torres, Samuel Eto’o and Demba Ba to practice their shooting or work on the defensive partnership of David Luiz and John Terry, Mourinho asked his players to work on their handball and basketball skills.

According to Hannah Duncan of Metro, Mourinho said:

"

Today instead of tactical work that I like to do before the match, I did a funny session.

I didn’t train in the tactical way, we played handball, we played basketball. I did a funny session where everyone was smiling and laughing.

The way isn’t always to massacre the players with tactical questions, when sometimes you aren’t happy enough for that. So it was good for them.

"

According to Jonathan Jurejko of the BBC, this is Chelsea’s worst start to a Premier League campaign in a decade.

Fulham visit Stamford Bridge looking to become the first side to inflict a Premier League defeat on Chelsea under Mourinho on home soil, per Matt McGeehan of the Independent.