Begovic nightmare as Chelsea lose to New York Red Bulls

Chelsea were humiliated 4-2 by a patchwork New York Red Bulls team on Wednesday evening. The hosts fought back from a goal down to score four second half goals – a performance made all the more remarkable by the fact most of the side had played a competitive game just 30 hours previously.

"I was surprised by our fragilities," muttered Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. "I said before we have no fragilities, but today we had fragilities, lots of fragilities. I was surprised that we were not good enough in the second half to cope with that."

The Bulls team was composed mainly of development players from the club's USL minor league team, Red Bulls II, and they had been expected to be rolled over by the Premier League champions. The script started as planned, with Loic Remy giving Chelsea the lead midway through the first half (though he looked in an offside position), an advantage they held at the break.

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Mourinho rang the changes at half-time, introducing for the second half Diego Costa, Eden Hazard, John Terry and Nemanja Matic. But the Bulls were not cowed and went on the attack and levelled on 51 minutes when Franklin Castellanos pounced on John Terry's poor backpass to fire past Asmir Begovic in the visitors' goal.

Costa squandered the opportunity to restore Chelsea lead's when he blazed over the bar from close range and the Bulls punished the Blues on 69 minutes when Tyler Adams headed their second. Sean Davis then made it 3-1 a couple of minutes later, and though Hazard pulled one back for Chelsea, Davis had the final word when he punished an error by Ramires.

It was a nightmare debut for goalkeeper Asmir Begovic, who replaced Thibaut Courtois at half time and ended up conceding four goals. "This was his first appearance since his move from Stoke City and he looked shaky, with both his kicking and positioning suspect," says the Daily Telegraph.

Asked to assess his opponents, Mourinho replied: "I didn't look at them. I just saw the ball in my net four times, and I didn't look at them. [But] they're young guys, they have quality, and motivation, their motivation is really high to play against us."

Mourinho, who rounded on member of his staff on the sidelines during the first half after they were caught using a phone, won't lose much sleep over a game that was nothing more than an exhibition match, but defeat to Paris Saint-Germain on Saturday and then against Barcelona on 29 July may cause him concern ahead of the Blues' clash with Arsenal on 2 August in the Community Shield.