Mourinho plays down Chelsea loss

Jose Mourinho played down the significance of Chelsea’s 1-0 loss to Fiorentina at Stamford Bridge – their third defeat in five pre-season friendlies.

Mourinho, whose team were also beaten by Arsenal in the Community Shield on Sunday, insisted the champions are in good shape ahead of Saturday’s Premier League opener against Swansea.

And the Blues boss was pleased with the performance of 18-year-old defender Ola Aina, who started the game along with fellow academy product Ruben Loftus-Cheek.

“It was a good training session and a good experience for the young boys to have a better feeling of first-team football,” Mourinho said.

“For the others – they had minutes. The ones who didn’t play on Sunday had 55 or 60 minutes.

“I prefer to win 5-0 rather than lose 1-0. That’s obvious. But the real one that counts is on Saturday.”

Diego Costa again missed out because of his ongoing hamstring trouble and Mourinho is unsure whether the striker will be available for the Swansea game.

But he reiterated that he is happy with his other attacking options – summer signing Radamel Falcao looked lively on his first appearance for Chelsea at the Bridge before he was replaced by Loic Remy.

Asked whether Costa was likely to play this weekend, Mourinho said: “I don’t know. But we have two other strikers.”

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