Mourinho hints at Basel lineup

After things went wrong at Goodison Park, it's important for Chelsea to get their Champions League campaign off to a winning start against Basel. But it's not so important that Jose Mourinho should disrupt youth development to do so, and according to the manager we'll see a fairly interesting, young lineup on display on Wednesday.

It's important for the club, for everybody, it's important for a team of kids, not just kids but a team that for example will tomorrow start the match with four players under 22, and if you think as we think in the club, in the evolution of the players and the team, it's very important for them to play on the big stage, and the big stage is the Champions League.

-Source: ChelseaFC.com.

I don't really know how we're going to field four players 'under 22', because the only first-teamers who haven't turned 22 year are Marco van Ginkel and Tomas Kalas. Under-23 seems more reasonable, and it wouldn't really result in a significantly weakened team -- we've got a big corps of experienced, talented players to choose from at that point, including Oscar, Eden Hazard, Kevin de Bruyne and Andre Schurrle.

Oscar and Frank Lampard have both been told they'll start, so we're likely to see quite a lot of turnover from the Everton match. Let's hope it results in a win.

PS: It's nice to be back in the Champions League, isn't it?