http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,283-1862106,00.html Mourinho flies off in wake of defeat By Matt Hughes November 08, 2005 The Chelsea manager needs to go back to basics in defence JOSE MOURINHO had said that there would be calls for a national holiday in the event of Chelsea losing in the Barclays Premiership, but he has chosen to mark his side’s defeat by Manchester United by taking a break himself. After finding it grim up north, Mourinho retreated to warmer climes yesterday, returning to Portugal to recharge his batteries before the biggest test of his managerial career. (莫里尼奧回葡萄牙充電。) Two successive defeats is hardly a crisis, not even for a club of Chelsea’s ambition, but a run of only one win in five games represents Mourinho’s worst sequence of results since he strolled into Stamford Bridge 18 months ago. The sharp-shooting sheriff still walks with a swagger, though recently his side have begun to fire blanks. (連續五場只贏一場，是莫里尼奧在史坦福橋18個月以來最差的成績。) After raising their game against United, Mourinho feels his players have answered the questions that hung over them after their poor performance against Real Betis last week, but now is the time for him to respond. Only once has he endured a worse run of results, when FC Porto lost three straight games just after he had taken over in February 2002, but two of them were single-goal defeats to a Real Madrid side who went on to win the Champions League, with Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and Raul in their pomp. (莫里尼奧在波爾圖執教時也曾嚐過連三敗，其中兩場都以1-0敗給當年歐冠冠軍皇馬。) Mourinho turned things around at Porto by rebuilding the squad the next summer and, though nothing so drastic is required at Chelsea, the manager has much to consider. The defence, in particular, is a cause for concern. After the team kept seven successive clean sheets at the start of the season, Petr Cech has begun to look vulnerable. Their net has been breached in seven of their past eight games, with six goals being conceded in five matches. (目前問題最嚴重的是後防問題。) As Mourinho identified last week, many of those goals have been the result of individual mistakes, such as Robert Huth’s poor header against Charlton Athletic and Asier Del Horno’s back-pass against Blackburn Rovers, but there is a deeper malaise for which the manager is partly culpable. The formidable organisation and authority that characterised Chelsea’s defence last season has been missing in recent weeks. It surely cannot be a coincidence that Mourinho has selected a different back four in each of the past five matches. Mourinho appears to be having doubts over the make-up of his strongest defence. In an attempt to keep Paulo Ferreira, Ricardo Carvalho and William Gallas happy, he has run the risk of alienating them all with constant rotation, with Gallas particularly peeved at playing at right back, left back and centre back in the past three matches. Chelsea’s back four have not been helped by the fall-off in form suffered by Claude Makelele, which seems to be related to his return to international football with France. (莫里尼奧似乎不太確定那四人才是後防最佳陣容，為了讓每個人都高興，他冒險輪替。) Mourinho is aware that, at 32, Makelele cannot go on for ever and has signed Lassana Diarra as his replacement, even suggesting in his Portuguese magazine column this week that the youngster's time could be coming. “If I have to move with kids like Diarra or Carlton Cole, I won’t look to faces or status,” he said. With a ten-point lead over United and little sign of their rivals developing any consistency, the Premiership is already Chelsea's to throw away, though any weaknesses at the back will undermine attempts to win the trophy that they really covet, the Champions League. (脆弱的後防線會慢慢地破壞切爾西想爭奪冠軍的希望，尤其是獲得歐洲冠軍杯的希望。) --

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