Mourinho praises 'fantastic' defense but left frustrated by Chelsea's inefficiency

With away goals not counting until the end of extra time of the second leg (should there be need for that), the two-legged semifinal between Chelsea and Liverpool has been essentially reduced to a single-elimination game to be played at Stamford Bridge.  Chelsea are nearly perfect in the friendly confines -- the 1:1 draw against Schalke 04 the only minor blip -- which should give us the advantage next week.  But that doesn't mean we can afford as much poor attacking play as was on display yesterday.

"Obviously Liverpool didn't deserve to lose but I'm frustrated because we had lots of situations when we recovered the ball in a low block, facing a three-defender tactical system, with lots of space to counter attack. Eden, Willian and Diego were in great condition to attack spaces but we missed so many passes. We recovered the ball and then lost the ball, the exact opposite of what happened against Swansea. Then, we recovered the ball and made the right pass, the right choice."

"Tonight it was fantastic defensive work, everybody was committed and organised, recovering the ball against good players, fast players, but when we recovered the ball we were not efficient with the transitions, so to score only one goal frustrates me."

-Jose Mourinho; source: Chelsea FC

While I wouldn't go as far as "fantastic" in terms of rating the defensive performance (especially in the second half), the Chelsea attack certainly didn't do the team any favors on Tuesday.  Combine that with our penchant for a juicy midfield turnover, and it's perhaps lucky (and in no small way credit to Thibaut Courtois) that we held on for the 1-1 draw.