UCL: Jose Mourinho endures poor UCL start as Chelsea lose at home to Basel, Arsenal beat Marseille

CHELSEA suffered a shock 2-1 defeat at home to Basel in Jose Mourinho's first Champions League game back at the club.


Oscar broke the deadlock for Chelsea on the stroke of half-time with a fine finish into the bottom corner after being played in by Frank Lampard.

The Brazilian struck the crossbar with a wonderful effort early in the second period and there were also chances for Eden Hazard and Branislav Ivanovic, but Chelsea never looked fully in control and they were pegged back in the 71st minute by a curling shot from Mohamed Salah.

Basel were not content to hold on for a point, though, and were rewarded for their adventure eight minutes from time when Marco Streller's near-post header from a corner crept past Petr Cech.

Willian was brought into the starting XI for his debut after arriving from Anzhi Makhachkala and there were also starts for Samuel Eto'o and Marco van Ginkel as Mourinho took charge of Chelsea in the Champions League for the first time since the draw with Rosenborg exactly six years ago which marked the end of his first spell at the helm.

Chelsea, missing the guile of Juan Mata, were unable to unlock the Swiss defence in a ponderous opening.

In the second term, gaps were appearing in the Blues' defence and Behrang Safari, wearing a head bandage following an earlier clash with Willian, found Streller with a diagonal pass and the target man laid the ball off for Salah to clinically net across goal.

Mourinho replaced Van Ginkel and Lampard with John Obi Mikel and Demba Ba, the latter going up front alongside the ineffective Eto'o.

Chelsea's pursuit of all three points left them exposed and Streller won a corner.

From the set-piece Streller evaded the attentions of Eto'o and Cahill to head substitute Matias Delgado's corner in at the near post. Cech might have done better, too.

Marcelo Diaz had an effort blocked as Basel looked for a third, with Chelsea well beaten as their winless run was extended to four games.

Elsewhere, Arsenal claimed a hard fought 2-1 win in their UEFA Champions League group F opener in Marseille thanks to goals from Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey.

Walcott's sublime volley from the corner of the six-yard box 25-minutes from time gave Arsenal the lead on what was a difficult night in the South of France.

Neither side impressed in the opening 45-minutes, but it was the home team who looked the more likely before Walcott struck - taking advantage of a poor clearance from Marseille full-back Guy Morel.

The win and three points was came courtesy of five-minutes of Aaron Ramsey's sixth goal in six games.

Marseille did claim a consolation in injury time when Jordan Ayew converted a penalty - given away by Ramsey, but the whistle went almost immediately after and left the home side with no time to look for an equaliser.

The win means Arsenal have now won ten successive away games.

In other games, Lionel Messi moved into second place on the all-time list of Champions League goalscorers with his 27th career hat-trick as Barcelona beat Ajax 4-0 at the Nou Camp.