Jose Mourinho will happily watch the second 45 minutes of this game again.

He will even watch the performance of Eden Hazard despite a missed penalty from the Belgian that saw the game end 1-1 .

But the Blues boss made his dissatisfaction known when he hauled off two of his stars at the break. Even then, things didn't go quite his way when the Slovenian minnows went a goal up, only for Nemanja Matić to claim a point against a Maribor keeper in top form.

Spitting pretty? Mourinho

Samir Handanović will probably never play better. Mourinho hopes his team does a lot better against Liverpool on Saturday.

"In the first half we didn't play well," he said.

"In the second half and after their goal we played very well and normally we should win the game. But when you don't play well for 19 minutes, you risk and in the last 30 minutes when we played really and intense and creative with a big desire to win, we had lots of chances to do it, their goal keeper was magnificent."

The Special One thought two of his were far from special when Schurrle and Willian made way for Oscar and Diego Costa, but despite a Maribor goal and Matic's equaliser, Hazard squandered a 12-yarder to win the game.

The manager said: "I was not happy with the performances, and I changed it with the conviction that the team was going to improve, which I was proven right.

"But they scored, and a player of my team can miss a penalty and still be the best, so I think we paid a bit the price of not a good first half.

"I think we deserved to win but this referee has a long history from my Italian times but, I don't want to go in that direction, and I don't want to speak about Liverpool."