Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho defended Frank Lampard after advising
him to hand penalty duty to Michael Ballack.
Mourinho told Lampard to take a break after missing three of his
last four penalties for Chelsea and England. Ballack took over with
style, scoring Chelsea's second from the spot in a 2-0 win against
Werder Bremen.
Michael Essien had fired the Blues ahead in the 24th minute.
Mourinho said: 'My confidence is 100% in Frank Lampard, no doubt
about it, but I told him (if) the next penalty is a crucial penalty
at a key point in the game then it's better for another player to
take the responsibility.
'But if the next one comes in a position where Lampard is cool he
will take it again.
'People remember Lampard missing a penalty against Charlton but I
remember him scoring more than 10 penalties for us.
'He has never let us down and I told him he can miss a penalty when
the team doesn't need it.'
The Chelsea boss went on to complain that England midfielder
Lampard had been given a raw deal by some sections of the media
since the World Cup.
Mourinho said: 'For me Lampard is guilty. He is guilty because you
never had a player like him in the last 10 years and because of
that you are having a go at him.
'He is guilty because he scored so many goals and he played so many
matches and he always gives 100% game after game for Chelsea and
England.'
'He's guilty because you have not had a player like him in 10
years,' Mourinho retorted angrily.
'I think you should treat him with more respect,'
Mourinho also hit out at the referee's decision to show four yellow
cards to his players in the second half and hinted that there may
be a conspiracy against his team.
He said: 'The reality is that if you look at Barcelona tonight they
had no yellow cards, Bayern Munich had no yellow card, Liverpool
had no yellow card, Valencia had no yellow cards, Roma had no
yellow cards but Chelsea have four. Do you think it is
violence?'
Despite his unhappiness with the referee, Mourinho was pleased to
start his European campaign with a win.
The Chelsea boss said: 'The result is fantastic. It is three points
against one of our direct opponents for qualification.
'The performance in the first half was very good. We had the game
under control but in the second half, until we scored the second
goal, we defended too deep and they were better than us.
'But they couldn't score and the penalty came and after that we had
the game under control.
'We looked sharper and we could have scored more but that would
have been unfair.'
Werder Bremen boss Thomas Schaaf was disappointed but pleased with
the way his players performed.
Schaaf said: 'We came here looking for success and we are not
satisfied but you cannot afford to make mistakes at this level and
we made two which Chelsea used to their advantage.'