José Mourinho praises Asmir Begovic after Swansea performance

Under normal circumstances, Asmir Begovic wouldn't be making headlines, just like most of the other back-up goalkeepers that Chelsea has had over almost ten years when Petr Cech was defending our goal. But one moment in football can change everything, and said moment was Thibaut Courtois' red-card after a challenge on Swansea's Bafétimbi Gomis. Begovic didn't manage to defend the ensuing penalty kick earned by Swansea, but he still made a good impression in the minutes he got -- earning praise from José Mourinho in the process.

"We don't miss Petr [Cech]. We've got a good keeper, the problem with Petr is not that we miss him because we have two excellent keepers.

"Thibaut and Asmir are two fantastic keepers. My club did very well by getting a keeper on time and not on the August 31 because if my club gives me a keeper on August 31 then we have a problem not just for Swansea, but also for the next match."

-José Mourinho; source: The London Evening Standard

Asmir Begovic also had his say about the teams' performance and his own after the Swansea match:

"[The circumstances for my debut were] not ideal at all. [...] You can't predict these things, it's one of those things where you're thrown in there and try and do your best.

"When you go down to 10 men it puts you on the back foot, but we stuck together well, showed good resilience and kept it to the two goals they scored. It was a decent point in the end. We'll take the point and move on to next week.

"I want to play as many games as I can, so I look forward to next week".

-Asmir Begovic; source: ChelseaFC.com

According to José Mourinho, Begovic will start next week's game against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium if the FA upholds Courtois' suspension. Either way, we should be in good hands.