Champions League: Chelsea through despite Basel loss

Salah latched on to a long ball forward by Fabian Schaer and outpaced Branislav Ivanovic as he cut in from the left before finishing past Petr Cech to hand the hosts a thoroughly deserved victory and keep their hopes of joining Chelsea in the last 16 alive heading into the final round of matches Basel39s Egyptian midfielder Mohamed Salah celebrates scoring a goal during the UEFA Champions League group E football match between Basel and Chelsea at St Jakob Park in Basel PicAFP It was Basel39s second win against the Premier League club in this season39s competition and propelled them into second place in the group above Schalke 04 who only managed a goalless draw away to Steaua Bucharest in the night39s other match That result was good news for Chelsea too as they are now certain to take one of the top two spots in the group However they still have work to do if they are to clinch first place with a home game against Steaua still to come and manager Jose Mourinho was deeply disappointed with what was a flat display by his side three days after they had thumped West Ham United 30 away in the Premier League quotThe only positive thing is that we go through but we go through because Schalke did not get a resultquot said the Portuguese quotBut I do not want to take any credit from the opponent as they were better than us quotI think from the first minute I was getting signs that my team was tiredThe goal is ridiculousquot Mourinho had made just one change to his side with Willian taking the place of Eden Hazard who dropped to the bench alongside the fitagain Fernando Torres That meant that Cesar Azpilicueta again started at leftback with Ashley Cole also only a substitute And Mourinho39s decision not to rotate his squad meant they also lacked freshness as the Blues produced a lacklustre performance in a game played in subzero temperatures That was reflected in the statistics with Basel having more of the possession and all the chances in what was an oustanding firsthalf showing in particular Chelsea only came close to scoring once in the opening period when Samuel Eto39o diving in at the back post just failed to connect with an Ivanovic cross from the right while Basel brought the best out of Cech on several occasions The Czech goalkeeper needed to be alert to keep out Marco Streller39s header from a Valentin Stocker freekick inside three minutes and that early scare for Chelsea set the tone for the opening half an hour Basel with seven players aged 24 or under in their starting lineup were by far the livelier of the two teams and Cech was also called into action to turn Fabian Frei39s shot from long range around the post before twice denying the talented Egyptian Salah In between Basel were also denied a penalty by French referee Stephane Lannoy who let play go on when the ball came off Frank Lampard39s arm inside the area Chelsea39s first half was summed up when Eto39o was stretchered off following an innocuouslooking challenge with Serey Die during a rare foray forward and Torres took his place There was a feeling that Chelsea had been let off the hook as they went in at the interval on level terms and their defence was rarely troubled after the restart with the exception of a Serey Die volley that flashed just wide after a poor clearance by John Terry They also looked brighter going forward once Hazard had come on in place of the ineffective Oscar but remarkably Basel 39keeper Yann Sommer did not have a save of note to make all evening And Basel finally got the breakthrough they merited with three minutes left when Salah who scored in their 21 win at Stamford Bridge in September sent the St JakobPark crowd into raptures